Unforeseen Consequences
by greenstuff2
Summary: A return to The Barn eight months on from Charles and Molly starting a new Chapter in their lives, a new job for Charles proving there is life after the army and a new baby, the absolute last as far as Molly is concerned,and their other three with the fourth, a very stroppy teenager to add to the mix ...
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Back to The Barn for an update on the consequences of life after the army with a new (ish) baby, three other kids and a very stroppy teenager, not to mention an Afghani girl that Molly feels responsible for ….. Thank you to Debbie for the suggestion, it was like stepping back into a parallel universe for me and has absolutely no point of reference to S2. I hope you enjoy going back there with me, please be kind and review, Ch.2 in a day or so.**

 **-OG-**

 _ **Molly**_

"Mrs James? I'm so sorry to have kept you waiting, come in, come in, actually we were expecting Colonel James ….."

"He's away, sorry"

Now didn't seem to be the best time to try and explain to this bloke that even though he'd just promoted him to _**Colonel**_ , Charlie wasn't actually even in the army anymore, although she had this vague memory of him saying something about still being entitled to his rank, or she might have made that bit up but she thought that was what he'd said even if to be honest she couldn't exactly remember. They'd been laughing too much as well as having had maybe one too many glasses of wine to celebrate his first day at DEC, even though she'd still been feeding Livvie and had had to give her a bottle so that she'd screamed all bloody night, not the best preparation for his second day.

"Well, no matter, no matter …." He raised his eyebrows and looked over the top of his glasses at her and at the kids clustered round, at least Livvie was fast asleep and hadn't woken up screaming the bloody place down when she'd taken the seat out the car, which Millie would have done without a shadow of a doubt. She wished she knew where to get the fairy dust other mum's obviously used to get their kids all docile and behaving like angels without the need for drugs or threats and although she wished her lot were all asleep, especially Millie, drugging them was just a nice idea. Millie was already not too impressed at being threatened that she had to be good or else, or else _what_ hadn't been established yet but Millie was still just too little to have worked that bit out, god help them when she did "Have a seat and I'll …. er … umm … go through it with you, can I get you anything, a cup of tea perhaps?"

Molly wanted to giggle and ask whether a Vodka was out the question, but that was just her nerves kicking in "Nah, I'm fine thanks, Mr… erm….Richards, um …Richardson, and I'm really sorry about having to bring this lot with me" She gestured at the children "But I didn't have anyone to leave them with, not at such short notice anyhow" And then wondered why the fuck she thought she had to apologise to him, but people like him always made her feel about fifteen again.

It wasn't strictly true of course that there had been no-one to leave them with, there was any number of people she could have asked but all of the potential baby sitters, friends, neighbours, fellow school gate mums would have needed her to come up with an explanation of some sort. Not least Penny and Bill in Bath, a quick phone call would have had the grandparents haring up the motorway to The Barn before you could say Jack Robinson, whoever the fuck he was. But that would have meant even more detailed explanations and that would have led to recriminations and an immediate phone call to one interested party in Dubai, someone who was going to be less than charmed. She had every right to know of course, Molly knew that, but it was bound to end up as Charles' fault in some way so that she didn't want it to happen until she knew what the fuck he'd been up to, what had gone on.

"No, that's fine, I'm only sorry we had to ..erm ..summon s …. I mean, get you here under these circumstances, like this" He inclined his head towards the children and nodded, smiling at them as they all stared at him with their mouths wide open obviously convinced that he was something out of Harry Potter, Sam's housemaster was the first person they'd ever seen wearing one of those gowns in real life "You understand that we're not permanently excluding Samuel, but we do feel it would be in his best interests to ….. go ….. erm ….. maybe to go home for the rest of the half, to perhaps take some time and reflect on … for a while, and there's only a week or so left till half term and then … maybe after the break we'll see where we are"

"Right" She smiled in a vain attempt to get on his good side, maybe to even get him to reconsider, change his mind although she knew there was fat chance of that happening as she frowned menacingly at Millie who had obviously come to the end of her 'be good or else' attention span and had started to surreptitiously poke Marcus on the leg to see if she could wind him up.

Molly thought she could detect a bucket load of bullshit in what the old fart was saying, it had far more to do with him not wanting Sam swanning about the place being hero-worshipped by the other little buggers, and they definitely didn't want to expel the little sod and lose the extortionate fees Charles was paying so that Sam could continue to stop here and be an ungrateful little bugger. Sam had promised her faithfully that there would be no more of this sort of shit. And where was her bloody husband when she needed him, not that she'd told him the last time Sammy had pulled a stunt like this, but that had been a while back now and at least Sam had been at home then so it had been easy for her to cover for him. But no-one could do that here, not in the goldfish bowl of this posh prison so that Charles was going to find out, same as he was going to find out that she had kept it from him last time the stupid little sod had done this sort of stuff. And she was going to have to be the one to tell him about it when he got home from sorting out aid in bloody Kenya, when he got back from playing humanitarian angel.

Last Spring he'd left the army behind him and Molly had stupidly thought that his new role at DEC would mean that he would come home at night, which to be fair he had done to start with and still did most of the time, except for when he was off organising things at some disaster or other, but coming home had got later and later and he was spending more and more hours at the weekends with his team 'sorting' stuff. Normally she didn't get her knickers in too much of a twist about it, or tried not to, he was always going to need to do something that needed action so she couldn't ever see him being a desk job man. It wouldn't be him to be sitting there pushing bits of paper about, but it was just that sometimes when things got a bit shitty like today with one of the kids ….. she almost looked back on his days in the army with a bit of nostalgia for the 'good old days'.

It was when Mr Richards, bugger it was Richards _ **on**_ , she had to try and remember what his name was because she didn't want to make things any worse, went off to get someone to summon her lovely stepson, who she might possibly kill when the two of them got home, that she suddenly wondered what he'd made of her. She was sitting in his book-lined study and had just picked a bit of Weetabix off her jeans without thinking. She had no make-up on but then she couldn't even remember washing her face before she'd left the house, let alone anything else, and had her hair tied back in a scruffy pony-tail. She hadn't really thought about it when she'd been dashing about shutting the dog in, changing Livvie's nappy, getting the others to go to the loo and then getting Millie to put some knickers on before she got them in the car and gave them dire warnings about what would happen if they misbehaved, but she was pretty sure that most of the mums who sat in that room would be wearing posh frocks and high heels and lippie and would have their hair done. She was a bit hazy about the details, still an east Ham girl under the surface, but she did wonder if they might even be wearing gloves.

One thing that was for sure was that they wouldn't have a whole tribe of kids with them, whereas she was like that bloody nun, the dopey mare with all the kids dressed in curtains who went around singing, not that Molly intended to do any singing, that was another thing she was no bloody good at. It was just that she was willing to bet that Mr Richards _**son**_ hadn't been expecting the _**Colonel**_ to have a wife like her.

"Just shut the fuck up and get in the car, Sam, it's bloody taters out 'ere and I don't wanna hear no more of it"

"Good job Dad can't hear you"

"If your Dad was 'ere, mate, this wouldn't be happening, so just shut up, get in the bloody car and we'll talk about it later on when we get 'ome"

She looked meaningfully at the other children as she tried to give him the clear message that she wasn't going to discuss any of it with him while they were there hanging on every word, especially Chloe who was going to be deeply impressed with his latest triumph. Yeah, he was seventeen and not a kid anymore, something that she knew in theory, but he still seemed much younger than that to her especially when he was wearing his school uniform. But any ideas she'd had about him being contrite because he was in disgrace and apologetic for dragging them all there to collect him had vanished immediately they'd got outside on the gravel forecourt of the school. Sam was truculent and unapologetic and had whined continually about his housemaster over-reacting and treating him like a kid over what had just been a bit of an evening out not to mention the headmaster who hadn't deigned to put in an appearance to speak to Molly. Maybe he would have done if the _**Colonel**_ had pitched up, but she obviously wasn't important enough, or maybe he'd thought that she was the nanny, she couldn't blame him if he had, sometimes she felt a bit like that herself.

"What did he tell you?"

"Who, your housemaster? What, apart from you behaving like a complete twat you mean? Not much"

She had managed to hold onto her irritation until everyone including the baby had been fed and bathed, and she'd got the little ones into bed and poured herself a huge glass of wine before threatening Chloe with a fate worse than death if she dared to put a single foot outside of her door before she told her that she could. She had relented slightly to allow her to watch Frozen for the nine millionth time on her I Pad, after all none of this was Chloe's fault, even if she was getting seriously on Molly's tits by looking adoringly at Sam as if he was unbelievably clever. At nearly nine Chloe wasn't a baby anymore so that Molly couldn't shut her up with a _look_ and Sam was lapping up her obvious hero-worship as he made smartarse comments under his breath and Molly wanted to slap him, very hard, cocky little fucker, but couldn't, so she had to settle for ignoring him until they were on their own.

"Come on then, least you can do is tell me the whole story after I had to traipse all the kids over there, 'n I've got a bullshit detector in the back of me head, so I'll 'ave the truth if you don't mind, don't even bother trying it on, okay?"

"You didn't have to be the one to come and pick me up, bringing all the bloody kids with you" He thought for a minute "I could have got a train"

"Them 'bloody kids' as you call them are your sisters and your brother, and what was I s'posed to do with them while you was getting yourself chucked out of school?" Molly could vaguely remember her mum getting pissed at her when she'd referred to her brothers and sisters as the little bleeders so that she felt a pang of remorse for the way it had upset Belinda "And it weren't my idea for you to get collected, you could of walked home far as I'm concerned but they insisted someone had to" She looked at the truculent expression on his face and thought how much like his dad he looked when he was pissed at someone or something "What? You'd have liked it better if I'd of called Penny and Bill, asked them to come and collect you?"

"What was wrong with asking my _father_ to come and get me if someone had to, Oh no, I forgot, he's never got time has he?"

"What? You expect your dad to nip back from Kenya just cos you can't do as you're bloody told? Or maybe your mum could of popped over from Dubai? You're not a kid Sam, you keep on telling us that, so what was you thinking mate?"

"Now you're being stupid as usual, and I'd forgotten he's away, but then he's always away isn't he?"

"Okay, Sam, explain it to your dad when he gets back"

She wanted to yell at him, to slap him, to ask him who the fuck he thought he was talking to, that his dad would kill him if he heard him but most of all she wanted to tell him that he was a spoilt little sod who didn't know what it was like to have nothing and that his dad was doing his best, but she could hear Nan's voice in her head giving her a swerve about kids who'd got nothing to eat who would be bloody grateful for the dinner she was refusing, saying it was disgusting and pulling faces like she was going to puke. Molly was suddenly worn out with it all knowing she'd be wasting her breath saying anything like that to him.

"You know some'ing Sam? I don't think you know jack shit about your dad"

"I know you always stick up for him"

"Go and do something useful, take Patchy out, poor little bugger didn't get a proper go this afternoon, and then, Oh I dunno, just go somewhere where I don't have to look at you while I work out what the fuck I'm going to tell your dad"

"I'm not taking _your_ dog for a walk, I'm going out" He pretended that he hadn't heard what she'd said about her telling his father.

"Nah 'fraid not sunshine,"

"You just said it Moll, I'm not a kid and you're not my mother so you can't stop me"

"Nah, know that" Molly resisted the temptation of saying thank fuck for that "But you just try it and see what happens, I know you think I'm a soft touch Sam, and maybe I have been, a bit, but I am pissed right off with you right now so don't push your luck"

She'd checked the time when she heard the little sod call Patch and heard the dog's excited yipping as his claws scrabbled around on the kitchen floor when Sam jangled the lead so that it appeared his defiance hadn't gone quite as far as not taking the dog out and late as it was, bloody Charles still hadn't rung. She had no bloody clue what she was going to say to him when he did, whether she was going to tell him any of it while he was out there doing, well whatever it was he was doing, and she still hadn't got the full story off of Sam.

-OG-

When he did eventually ring she was not exactly at her sunniest. She'd given up waiting for him to call and had gone to bed, so that she was warm and cosy and almost asleep. Sam had come back and stomped off to his room after kicking his shoes off in the hall so that they'd hit the wall and hadn't even bothered putting his head round the door to say he was back, so he was obviously still in a major strop. But at least he had come back and hadn't carried out his threat of going out to god knows where, which meant she didn't actually have to carry out her threat and ring his grandparents, get them to take him out of her hair and off to Bath until Charles got back. Although a few days with Penny would have done him the bleeding world of good, probably have made him grateful for her and the kids, or it might of done anyway, she was at a loss to know what was for the best.

"Hey, everything okay? Sorry, I'm sorry I'm so late, it's been a bit manic today, kids alright?" He looked like he was sitting in the middle of a digital storm of green and white flashes and he sounded like he was in the bottom of an echoey swimming pool on the far side of the moon "Can you hear me? See me? This is a crap line, hang up and I'll try again"

"No, you're alright I can hear you 'n it _is_ a bit late innit, we can talk tomorrow"

"Sorry, I can't really see you, were you in bed, I didn't wake you did I?"

"Nah, it's okay, you okay?"

"Come on Moll, what's up? and don't say nothing, I can hear it, what's wrong?"

"Bit tired that's all, kids playing up" Which she thought would get her the gold bloody medal for understatement "Look, just take care and don't worry about trying to call tomorrow if it's hard to get through, I'll see you Saturday"

"Yeah, look about that Moll, it might take a few more days to sort things here, I will call you tomorrow, I'll know a bit more by then, sorry"

"Yeah, alright"

"You sure everything's okay?"

"Yeah"

Oh, terrific, bleeding wonderful, she'd disconnected, pressing the call end icon before she could say something that she'd be sorry for and had then realised that neither of them had said goodbye properly or more importantly said 'I love you' or 'I miss you' which was something that they always did, no matter what, even when they were having a huge barney about something, but this didn't feel like everything was normal.

 **Charles**

He'd known it was really late back in the UK and that she would have been waiting for him to call, and knowing Molly as he did he was sure she'd have been getting more than a little pissed off with him for not calling earlier. The simple truth was that the time had run away with him and he'd forgotten, not forgotten her exactly, but he hadn't been keeping a close enough eye on the time so that he could time the call so that the kids would be in bed but that Molly wouldn't be. He was also a bit guilty of putting it off, he hadn't been looking forward to telling her that he might not be home on Saturday and as he'd expected the news hadn't gone down well even if she hadn't said anything, but he now tugged at the hair on the back of his neck and shrugged, then looked in the mirror and ran a hand over his chin.

Who was he bloody kidding here, he was not going to be home on Saturday so what the hell had he been thinking when he'd told her he wasn't sure? When did he and Molly start lying to each other for fuck sake?

-OG-


	2. Chapter 2

_**A/N: Thank you for welcoming a return to life at The Barn. I know that the reviews are not showing on FF but they are being sent to me by e-mail so I have read them and thank you for taking the time to encourage me the way you do. I hope you enjoy this.**_

 _ **Molly**_

In the past when he's been off somewhere I'd have dozens of things stored up ready to tell him when he rang because he'd always said how he missed all the stuff about home, the kids, the dog, and me of course. I knew that he did need to be involved in whatever this shit was that he was doing out there, although I wasn't sure why it always had to be him that had to go off to these places, but even though he denied it, what was obvious was that he still missed the army, that he hadn't found making a new life outside nearly as easy as he'd expected, but this, this felt lonely. That's if you can be lonely when you're surrounded by babies and kids and dogs and stroppy bloody teenagers. I'd never intended to end up like a single mum to four kids, well five really even if one of them wasn't even mine, but that was what it sort of felt like, and it wasn't just today either, this feeling had been building for a while.

Our bed felt big and cold and lonely and I'd gone from being on the verge of dropping off to bloody wide awake and I couldn't get comfortable on the pillows that felt like bricks. I thought about ringing him back, just to say _something_ until the bedroom door creaked open and Millie come wandering in without a stitch on and sucking her thumb. I knew that the bare bum meant a wet bed, again, and that I really should get up and sort it, but just tucked our little madam into bed with me knowing it would be like sleeping with a bloody wriggly octopus and that she could very well pee on me, but I hadn't got the heart to say no, it's the only time she's ever really cuddly with me is when she's sleepy.

-OG-

"It's not fair, how come she's always allowed to sleep in your bed with you Mummy?"

"Nah she isn't 'n she doesn't, Marky, not always, and you're a big boy now so that's why you sleep in your own bed"

Shit, even as she heard the words came out of her gob Molly knew it wasn't the cleverest thing she'd ever said and that it was odds on for a volcanic melt-down from their little toe rag who would undoubtedly object at the top of her lungs to any suggestion that she was not a big girl, especially as Marcus wasn't being his usual sunny self and was jabbing his finger at her before immediately starting with the taunts about her still being a little baby like Livvie. It was her own fault for not thinking before she spoke as Millie's screams of outrage hit her ears, but she'd had a delightful night's sleep with her flinging her arms and legs about and then settling like a star fish bang slap in the middle of the bed before starting to bodge about again all the time muttering in her sleep, although small blessings, she hadn't actually peed on her. And then Livvie had started the day at 5.00 which was when Charlie woke up when he was home so that the baby had got used to someone being awake at that time because he was the one who got up and sorted her when he was there while Molly buried her head under her pillow and hoped for at least another hour. But he wasn't there was he? And it was happening far too often these days for her liking.

It was at breakfast time on days like this that she found it hardest to remember what the hell had made her go all weak-willed around him so that she'd ended up like her mum, something she always used to say she wouldn't do for all the bloody tea in China and now look at her. Marcus was being a stroppy little bugger and grizzling that he had tummy ache so couldn't go to school and Millie had stopped throwing a full on tantrum long enough to keep on accidentally on purpose dropping her spoon on the floor and giggling at the dog who'd sat himself under the table next to her so that he could keep on licking the Weetabix off the spoon and the floor under it where it splattered, meaning that Molly had to keep on getting her a clean one. After the third time she'd yelled at her to stop doing it or else and Millie had started to repeat over and over that she wanted to know when her daddy was going to be home, adding with a seriously malevolent frown in Molly's direction that she didn't like her, that she was a mean and horrible mummy and that she only liked her daddy. Chloe immediately chipped in insisting she was trying to be helpful but wasn't in the least saying it was because Millie was a brat and that she was daddy's favourite and that he spoilt her.

Molly's first instinct was to deny what she'd just said and to demand that Chloe tell her where she'd got that little gem from, where she'd overheard it, but then managed to stop herself from asking because she wasn't sure that she had the energy to deal with the fall-out, and anyhow she could probably make a pretty good guess. Penny wasn't exactly Millie's biggest fan. It was something that really got to Molly, the fact that their grandmother had favourites and didn't really make much of an effort to hide it.

"Don't be so ridiculous Chloe, Daddy doesn't have favourites, no-one does"

"Yes he does and so do you, Mummy, Marcus is your favourite, it's only me that no-one loves"

"Don't be bloody ridiculous, and come on it's time to get your stuff together and you know you're just being daft Chloe, no-one has any favourites in this house"

Molly was very tempted to laugh at the blatant attempt at 'poor me' and was highly tempted to add that she hated them all equally, but one child already hating her, one complaining that he was going to die if she sent him to school, one having a diva moment and one still in his pit sulking was enough for barely half past seven after no sleep worth talking about. In fact the only good things about the morning were that Livvie, sunny, happy little Livvie was sitting propped in her chair flicking Weetabix all over the kitchen and Sam was still in his pit, not that she'd really expected anything else, he was a teenager for fuck sake, but it was just that she wasn't exactly sorry she didn't have to deal with him on top, she still hadn't got a scoobie what she was going to do, how and when she was going to tell Charlie. She was now toying with the idea of making Sam do it himself, how she was going to make that happen she didn't know, and anyway it wouldn't make any difference to how pissed his dad was going to be at her.

 _ **Charles**_

He'd woken at 5.00 as usual, the breeze off the sea was billowing out the curtains where he'd left the sliding door to the balcony open a bit the previous night, against all the advice and his own common sense but he'd stupidly forgotten about getting up to close it. Shit, it hadn't taken long for him to get sloppy after a lifetime of being ultra-cautious and in control, of following the rules himself and underlining for everyone all the time the importance of staying focussed and staying alert. Luckily the only problem was that it was actually 7.00 local time and he should have been up for at least two hours but for some reason he hadn't made sure that the alarm was set before he'd hit his pit so he was going to be late, very late. He'd got a breakfast meeting arranged with the local people on the ground and he had fully intended to call home before it started, but now there was barely enough time for a much needed shower and a shave, his days of being able to get away with the designer stubble, as Molly called it, were over. Now he thought it made him look like some dirty old unshaven dosser who was badly in need of a hose down rather than anything else although Molly had told him more than once to forget it if he was fishing for compliments because she wasn't going to give him any.

His conversation with her the previous night had left him feeling unsettled and guilty so that he was restless and uncomfortable making it difficult, in the end impossible, for him to drop off because despite the crap connection on Skype he could tell from her voice that not only was she pissed at him, with good reason, but that there was something wrong. The hours he'd then spent tossing and turning and trying to make the pillow feel less like a sandbag had made him bloody furious with himself that he hadn't rung her back straight away. He was always telling her that he could read her like a book, it had incensed her over the years and she always denied it vehemently whenever he'd said it, but it was true and it had been ever since those far-off days in Afghan. He felt guilty because he was letting her down and was almost certainly being unbelievably selfish.

 _ **Molly**_

If it hadn't been that it was bloody freezing and spitting icy cold needles of rain on her bare head as well as her sudden urgent need to pee she would have kept on walking until Livvie started to mither, anything to put off going home for as long as she possibly could. She'd had four missed calls from Charles during the time she'd been out so that he'd eventually left a bit of a tetchy message telling her to call him, but she hadn't wanted to talk to him, not then, she had to do some thinking first. She was far happier plugged in and singing along to her favourite bit of Brittany which would have had Charles pissing himself, he could be a real music Nazi sometimes. The only time that Molly ever sang aloud was at times like this when there was no-one to hear her, well not counting the baby, the dog and some random sheep and none of them could give a shit that she was absolute rubbish at it.

Livvie was warm and was snoozing happily against her back in the carrier as she walked and Patch was running all over chasing after god knows what, probably smells but then he'd keep on coming back to make sure she was still there which meant she didn't have to do anything to get him back so she'd ended up walking bloody miles meaning her tired legs were now aching to buggery, but she was beginning to feel a bit better, if a bit desperate for the loo.

She'd been in to see Marcus' teacher and asked her to ring if he really wasn't well, although he'd eaten all his breakfast and the woman had said it was most likely a bit of a strop because his little mate was away skiing and Marcus had been well grumpy about it the day before, even refusing to go out and play with the others which had made Molly feel guilty. With all the crap that had gone on with Sam she hadn't really paid that much attention to the others so that he hadn't had the chance to tell her about it and she knew, being Marcus that he wouldn't just come out and tell her, she would have to have noticed that he was a bit quiet, well more than usual, and ask him what was wrong. But it did mean that she had to keep checking every time her phone rang, just in case, but it was Charles every time so that she made up her mind that she had to call him, but later on, much later on.

She got home to no evidence at all that Sam had been up and out of his pit and had for about ten seconds considered going up to try and talk to him, but then decided to just leave him to it. She was in no hurry for another set to with him and the Sam that she knew and loved, the one that looked just like his dad with his sweet smile and his dark curly hair and the big brown eyes behind his Harry Potter specs, seemed to belong to another lifetime.

 _ **Charles**_

Molly now didn't appear to want to speak to him, wouldn't answer his calls. She would know who it was trying to get hold of her and even though he'd tried at every opportunity he'd got, whenever he could duck out of the meeting for a few minutes, he was left frustrated and more than a tad annoyed with her, as well as getting just a tiny bit anxious about why she wasn't answering, where she could have got to. The school run would definitely be over and done with by then and she wouldn't have gone off anywhere without her phone in case of some emergency with one of the kids, so that he was left with the uncomfortable feeling that it was because she didn't want to talk to him.

 _ **Molly and Sam**_

"What you doing?"

Sam spun round as though she'd caught him in the act of robbing the place or something as he stopped shoving stuff in his rucksack before turning his back on her again, shrugging and not bothering with trying to find an answer.

Molly had gone upstairs to carefully strip the eskimo layers off Livvie and put her in her cot to finish the nap she'd been having when she realised that Sam's door was slightly open and that he was packing as though he was off on some sort of outing somewhere.

"Running away?"

"Don't be ridiculous …. why would I be doing that?" Sam didn't look at her but his hands stopped what they were doing as he obviously considered adding to his truculent denial and then shrugged "Just thought I'd get off and ….. Yes"

"Yeah thought so, where you gonna go?"

"I don't know, I thought …. probably London"

"Okay …and what you gonna do when you get there and where you gonna sleep?"

"I don't know, do I, but I'll be fine, there are hostels, I googled it"

"Mmm I know, 'n if you get in one of them at least you'll be dry and you can have a shower, but you know you can only stop for the one night, yeah? And you can't go back to the same one over and over, they have to let everyone have a go, only fair. You got any money?"

Of all the things Sam had expected this wasn't one of them, he'd told himself that he would leave her a note and tell her not to worry about him and that he would just slip off before she got back from wherever it was she'd gone. He ignored her question about what he was going to do, he hadn't thought that far ahead so he had no idea, and he knew that he should have gone earlier but it was only when she was out that he'd really started to mull over how fucked up everything was and how sick he was of being treated like he was some schoolkid, especially by his dad. He never wanted to go back to that school because he hated every bloody minute of it but most of all he wanted to show them that he could look after himself. He didn't want to wait until she got back because he knew she would go off on one as she would call it and would then stop him and tell him that he couldn't do anything of the sort, that she'd have to call his dad and get him to sort it or something, but instead she sounded like she wasn't that bothered at all what he did.

"I've got forty quid and my cash card, got my Christmas money in the bank so I've got plenty, no need to worry about me"

"Oh I'm not" Molly smiled and gave a little shake of her head "Make sure you put it in your sock though, specially in any hostel, and put a bit of paper in 'n all with our phone numbers written on it case you need to get hold of us"

"S'alright I don't need them, I've got my phone" He waved it at her to prove it.

"But how long for? Oh Sammie, sorry _Sam_ " That was another thing he didn't like anymore being called Sammie, and she was having a hard enough job keeping a straight face as it was, he was seventeen going on ten "You won't have that by this time tomorrow, mate, they'll take one look at a posh boy like you and have your phone and anything else you've got worth having, you won't last five bleeding minutes specially not in that clobber"

Sam looked down at the designer jeans his mum had bought him at Christmas and at the 'distressed' leather biker jacket that Molly had helped him pick out when his dad had exclaimed 'HOW MUCH?" and he shrugged, not entirely sure what she was getting at.

"You'd be better with something old and make sure you've got lots of layers on, cos its bloody taters out there 'n you might have to sleep outside tonight"

"Alright in that case I'll change"

He was now determined that he was not going to back down so he walked over and shut the bedroom door in her face leaving Molly standing on the other side looking at it while she desperately considered her options. It was obvious that Operation Scare the Bloody Shit out of him hadn't worked so she needed to come up with some alternative tactic but her brain was wrapped in layers of cotton wool after her non-existent sleep of the night before.

-OG-


	3. Chapter 3

_**A/N: Thank you for your on-going support and your reviews – what now, now that he's home? - Chapter 4 in a couple of days at the most….**_

-OG-

It was a toss-up whether to ring him or see if she could get hold of Penny and Bill, it was bleeding obvious that she needed to try to find someone to talk some sense into the obstinate little bugger, or threaten him or something, but even if she rang Charles she wasn't sure what he could do, if anything, from however many sodding miles away he was. If it was purely down to her she'd just tell the little bugger to _go on then, leave, get on with it, see how long you last_ , but she couldn't, old Stern-Face would never, ever forgive her if Sam actually went and then something shit happened to him, and fuck it, it was beginning to look like she might have got it all wrong and that he was actually intending to go through with it. That what she'd thought was a tantrum, a bit of dick waving as his dad would say, was actually a serious possibility.

 _ **Charles**_

He'd just checked his phone for the umpteenth time and then left it on silent rather than switching it off. He was doing his level best to put his anxiety into the "worry about it later box" but hard as he tried that wasn't really working this time, he _was_ worried and was finding it difficult to concentrate on the bickering that was evidently the root cause of some problem or other between a couple of the aid agencies. He wanted to tell them to fucking grow up and start behaving like the adults they were supposed to be, not as if they were still in the playground and for fuck sake didn't they think that the situation was already bad enough without any of them playing "I'm more important than you so what I say goes". It was times like this that he badly missed being able to pull rank.

This was nothing like he'd thought it was going to be, he certainly hadn't expected all the politics and the bitching and the in-fighting that went on between different charitable organisations whose leaders seemed to him to be far more concerned with sound-bytes, empire-building and getting their faces on the news or in the papers than concentrating their efforts on sorting out how to get the right aid to the right people, to get it where it was needed most, and there were plenty of places like that to go round.

He still couldn't get rid of his niggling worry that this had something to do with Bashira. If the problem had been with one of their own children or the house or one of their families or something she would have said, wouldn't have kept it from him but Bashira was a whole different ball bag as Molly would say. He knew she was worrying about the girl getting involved with a slightly radical group of Islamists although she had no evidence of that, or if she had she hadn't wanted to share it with him, but on the other hand she was also worried that she might get too close to some non-Muslim lad which would deeply upset Quaseem. She couldn't make up her mind which scared her most and he couldn't help because she knew he wanted her to let it go. He was fond of the girl himself and didn't mind in the slightest that she was at The Barn so often, the children adored her, especially Marcus, but it was Molly that worried him. Nothing and no-one could persuade her that she was not personally responsible for every tiny bit of Bashira's well-being, that what had happened when she was a little girl was not Molly's fault and that she had to stop beating herself up over it. But she didn't believe him, she said she did, said that she knew he was right, but he knew that it was a lie and that not even Quaseem could convince her, he was another one who'd tried … and failed.

 _ **Molly and Sam**_

"Want a cuppa before you go?"

He shook his head as he stood there looking past her not quite meeting her eyes, cockiness oozing from every pore as he hitched the rucksack onto his shoulder and gestured at his clothes with a slightly sarcastic grin on his face, he obviously thought that she was talking complete shite, though to be honest she thought she probably was. He was now wearing a pair of old jeans that were slightly too short and tight and a faded Bath Rugby sweatshirt so that she looked him up and down then nodded her approval before raising her eyebrows at his designer label trainers. If he really intended to live on the streets he'd bloody better have them super-glued to his feet otherwise they'd be a distant memory by tomorrow tea-time.

"That's better, although you might wanna think again about them" She pointed at his feet "Find some old ones, Sam, and listen, just make sure you don't go in any public loos if you need to pee, McDonalds is fine, or Starbucks or somewhere like that but if you're desperate find an alleyway"

"What?" For a moment he looked every bit the product of his sheltered middle-class upbringing, his horror at what she was telling him to do was written all over his face "I can't do that, I'll get arrested and dad would have a fit"

"Won't matter what your dad thinks if you're not here, and anyhow, better that than the alternative, mate, you do know what happens to boys like you when they live on the streets don't you?" She raised her eyebrows "Not that you'll need to worry after a bit, you won't be so pretty when you get a bit grubby 'n smelly 'n then they'll probably leave you alone"

For all his teenage laziness Sam was fastidious and spent hours in the bathroom worrying about the odd spot when he was at home and he especially liked his hair to be squeaky clean. She had her fingers firmly crossed behind her back and was almost holding her breath as she watched him bite and chew at his bottom lip, just like his dad did when he was considering something as Sam struggled not to believe her, at the same time as being horribly afraid she was telling the truth. Mind you, it was more than she was, she was making it up as she went along.

"You're trying to scare me"

"Nah, don't need to there's plenty out there'll do a much better job than me of scaring the crap out of you 'n they'll probably get off on it, so just don't say no-one warned you"

She turned her back on him and made the biggest and most determined effort she could ever remember to show she wasn't bothered, well apart from when she'd had to pretend she didn't care anymore when she'd met up with his dad in Turkey, and he'd got a bit too friendly for her liking with that blonde girl, whatever the fuck her name was, Izzy that was it. She dropped a tea bag in a mug and boiled the kettle again before turning away and starting to chip the cement that was dried on Weetabix off the table top. She was muttering to herself that she really had to try and find something else the kids would eat for breakfast, this stuff was like bleeding mortar, you could build houses with it and what the fuck was wrong with a bowl of coco-pops anyway, they tasted a hell of a lot better than this stuff even though it was supposed to be healthier.

"Sorry"

"What for?" She smiled at him "What you sorry for Sam? Changed your mind?"

"No, it's just ….. look I'm sorry about all of it, about school and being rude and well, all of it" Molly turned to look at him, she wanted to shake him and tell him not to be so fucking stupid just because he didn't want to lose face, or face his mum and dad or whatever, but running away wasn't the answer and she should know. He should come and give her a hug instead and then they could sort it whatever it was had happened "What did my dad say when you told him?"

"'aven't told him Sam, well, don't know meself do I?"

He moved back into the kitchen and took the rucksack off his back dropping it to the floor before dumping his jacket on the back of a chair, thinking for a minute before picking it up again and slinging it over his shoulder, ready to walk out. Molly was shaking her head and holding her breath as he stopped to take his glasses off and then rubbed his eyes before putting them back on. The silence dragged on and on. She blew across the top of her cup trying to cool it enough to drink, but in reality to give herself something to concentrate on which didn't involve looking at him as she waited for him to say something.

Then he turned and walked out.

"Fuck it"

She wanted to run after him and shout at him to get his arse back in there and that he was behaving worse than Millie when she having a strop, but then decided not to waste her breath. She was bloody sick of the whole thing, well to be honest she was a bit bloody sick of him, if he wanted to make some sort of _gesture_ and go off in a huffthere was sod-all she could say was going to make the slightest bit of difference.

 _ **Charles and Molly**_

"Where the fuck have you been?"

"What do you mean, where have _ **I**_ been? I've been here looking after bloody kids all day, clearing up and picking up and running after them and I've rung you over and over, where the fuck have _you_ been?" She hoisted Livvie a bit higher up on her hip.

"I'm sorry, things are a tad awkward here, is everything alright there Moll? You sound a bit ….. I've been a bit worried"

"Not worried enough to keep your bloody phone on, and when will you be home?" She shifted Livvie from one hip to the other and tried to smile at her, because suddenly her stiff upper lip was wobbling or rather her bottom lip was, this really had been the shit day from hell and he'd just made it a whole lot worse by yelling at her as if it was her fault "I need you to come home as soon as you can, there must be someone else can, you know, sort things there"

"Molly, please, just tell me what the fuck's going on there, you're seriously worrying me now"

She'd rung him shortly after Sam had flounced out only to find her call diverted to voice mail and it really wasn't the sort of thing she could explain in a few minutes of message time, so that she'd disconnected and tried again after an hour and then tried again, getting more and more annoyed each time until she'd just asked him to call her back and had then spent ages trying to decide what she was going to tell him when he did. She was still clinging on to a tiny hope that Sam would have got cold and hungry and would have thought better of his hissy fit before he'd even got on a train, or if he'd got that far, when he realised just how bloody horrible London stations can be when it's raining and cold and getting dark and you've got nowhere _nice_ and warm to go.

"Is it Bashira?"

"Nah, why would it be to do with her? Nah …." she gulped "It's Sam"

"Sam? What? Is he ill? Has he had an accident? What?"

"Nah, it's nothin' like that ….. it's …. he's ….. he's in a bit of bother, sort of got hisself chucked out of school, been suspended anyway"

"WHAT? Shit, what the fuck did he do?"

"I don't know, he won't tell me, just keeps on saying it was no big deal, but they don't throw you out for no big deal do they? He _**was**_ here but then he decided to go and live on the bloody streets in London, go and be a drop out or some'ing, pratt, I think he's a bit scared of what you …. I mean what you and his mum …. Well, anyway he scared the shit out of me cos he wouldn't listen, but then about hour ago he rings 'n says he's coming home, so obviously it weren't as much fun as he thought having nowhere to go"

"Why did you let him go in the first place?"

"Oh my fault? I see, might of known it, and what was I s'posed to do, tie 'im up, lock him in, what? Told you, he wouldn't listen to anything I said"

"Sorry, well, look don't go and pick him up from the station, let the little bugger walk home, it'll do him good" She could hear how angry he was from the clipped tone of his voice, she'd heard him use that tone to talk to dozens of people over the years and it never, ever meant good news "See if you can find out what the fuck he's been up to"

"It's not me should be sorting this, mate, I can't tell him what to do, when you coming home?"

"It's still a tad difficult here, I'll ….."

"It's a _tad_ bloody difficult here 'n all and I'm bloody hacked off doing this on me own, Sam was right, I'm not his mum, he don't have to listen to me, but I s'pose I could call your mum and dad, get them to pick him up 'n take him to Bath, sort 'im out"

"No don't do that, listen Moll what you have to ..."

She heard him start to tell her what to do but ignored him as she disconnected and switched off the phone so that he couldn't call back, then smiled at Olivia again, okay it was probably more a baring of the teeth type of grimace than a smile but she no longer felt like having a bloody good cry, she was seething and in a far worse mood than she had been before he'd rung. Tosser. She didn't want to hear any more of it, no more explanations or justifications, no more excuses or whatever the fuck they were, she just needed him to remember he had responsibilities here at home as well, kids, as well as a wife, although at that moment she wasn't so sure about that. The thought of years and years of this shit and four kids or five if he didn't come home and kill Sam, meant that she couldn't just up and walk away even if she wanted to.

 _ **Molly and Sam**_

In the end she put the kids in the car and collected a shame-faced Sam from the station, whether or not that was mainly to stick two fingers up at his dad was a bit of a moot point although she told herself it was because she wanted them all home, safe and sound, tucked up where she could see them because at least then she could get a decent night's sleep. She was bloody knackered.

Sam had very little to say for himself on the journey back. It was dark and cold and pouring with rain so that Molly was tempted to tell him what his father had said, he didn't seem to be exactly overflowing with gratitude for her turning out for him. He'd muttered something that might have been _sorry and thanks_ although he'd said nothing at all about how she was right and that London was a bit of an unfriendly place, especially when you're on your own and not used to it and you haven't got a clue where to go or what to do. He'd walked for a little while surrounded by hordes of people who all looked as though they knew exactly where they were heading as they pushed and shoved when anyone got in their way and he'd had to keep stopping to try and work out how to get to Piccadilly Circus.

He'd almost immediately got himself completely lost so that he'd gone into a coffee place to have a drink and use their lavatory and to ask someone for directions. The server didn't appear to speak any English at all, either that or he was the most unfriendly person that Sam had ever met, he'd just stared, hadn't even smiled, so that Sam had ended up apologising to him and then walking around for another hour in the rain until he'd had a basinful. He was cold and he was wet and he was thoroughly pissed off, and on top of that he had no idea where he was going or what he was going do when he got there, wherever it was. So he'd ended up coming back here feeling stupid and telling himself that he should have given it more of a go, it might not have been as bad as it seemed if he'd got a bit more used to it. But he was not going to tell her anything, was not going to admit that anything she'd said had had anything to do with his change of heart, he was not going to tell her that he'd found himself avoiding looking at anyone in case they were looking at him.

 _ **Molly and Charles**_

"Chloe James, I've told you over and over and I won't bloody tell you again, stop letting the dog lick your face like that, he's just been licking his bum"

"Lovely"

"DADDY" "Daddy" _"Daaaadddy"_

 _-OG-_


	4. Chapter 4

_**A/N: Thank you for your reviews and sorry that this has taken a bit longer than I expected, blame I think it's Microsoft that decided to upgrade my Windows 10 and put my laptop out of action for hours and hours and bloody hours… and then I find all my latest edits have vanished so it was back to the drawing board - I'll give them 'may take a while'**_

 _ **Chapter 5 on its way as long as no-one comes along and decides to mess with me again.**_

 _ **-OG-**_

 _ **Molly**_

And there he was, with no warning that he was on his way home or anything, suddenly standing there in the doorway with those puppy dog eyes and that "I know I'm in the shit but you are gonna forgive me aren't you?" look on his face before he bent down to let the kids all pile in on top of him, ruffling their hair and kissing the tops of their heads with this big happy grin as they all hugged him and talked over each other. Even the dog abandoned her and went rushing over to frantically lick his gob, which Charles let him do even though he'd just heard her saying that Patch had been licking his bum. The only person that wasn't getting killed in the rush to get over and hug him and kiss him was her, well her and Livvie who couldn't because she was attached to Molly's hip, and she couldn't walk yet anyway, although Molly was pretty sure that if she put her down on the floor she'd do her sideways bum shuffle over to him as fast as she could go….

Molly knew she had a sour look on her face, but that was because she felt sour. God it was as if it was the return of some bloody conquering hero or something and him just turning up with no bleeding warning like that meant that the place was a total pig pit and so was she, not that that should matter, but well … it did. If she'd known that he was on his way back she could at least of tidied up a bit, maybe, but she could have definitely put on something half decent, perhaps brushed her hair, although he'd seen her look a million times worse, but still … it mattered. But what really, really annoyed her more than anything else was the way her heart got all jumpy at the sound of his voice and that there was a great big bit of her that wanted to just forget it and for him to put his arms round her, hug her, make her feel better like he had done in the past and it bloody infuriated her that even after everything she was still a soft touch round him, that he could turn her into this weak-kneed, weak-willed mush with no effort at all on his part.

-OG-

The trouble was, well part of the trouble was, she'd spent a lot of time this last time he'd been away, even before all the crap with Sam, just _thinking_ or over-thinking maybe, so that she'd begun to feel this itchy dissatisfaction with her life as it was. She couldn't remember the last time that she'd had any fun, well, not the sort of fun out of the bedroom that she could talk about to her mum or her mother- in-law anyway, it was all kids and the school run and washing and ironing and cooking and cleaning and … stuff .. and she didn't even get to see her old mates from her army days or her time as an EMT any more, she barely got to exchange e-mails with them and when she did she had nothing to tell them that they would care about. And she couldn't go out for a run either, even going for a walk when the kids were at school meant taking Olivia and the dog with her …. She'd almost got to the point where she was envious of Sam. He didn't know how lucky he was that he could just piss off and leave it all behind if that was what he wanted.

She and Olivia had had lunch and she'd spent bloody ages down on her hands and knees scoping the carpet for any more stray bits of Lego after she'd stepped on one with a bare foot and had hopped round the room in absolute bloody agony. She'd been swearing blue bloody murder at the top of her voice so that eventually hermit Sam had come down to see what the hell was wrong. But it had hurt, it had really _hurt_ so that she felt entitled, same way that as soon as Sam had gone back to his cave she'd felt entitled to let the tears she'd been holding back all morning spill over and flood down her face. They weren't really tears because she'd hurt her foot, although it still throbbed a bit, these were tears of being totally fucked, of being so unbelievably fed up that she wanted, no she needed, to _**do**_ something. Once upon a time she'd had plans, she'd been a medic and been good at it, had her medal to prove it, then an EMT and she'd been good at that as well, she'd been happy, settled, had got what she'd thought she wanted, no, what she had wanted at the time, but now she wanted something different, she didn't know what exactly, just needed a plan or something to work towards, something to look forward to.

She'd gone on-line and checked out rightmove and Zoopla, just to see what sort of place she could afford if she moved out and left him to get on with the whole bloody lot and went to live on her own somewhere near her family, even looked into going back in the army, perhaps. Not that that was ever going to happen, of course, because she couldn't imagine leaving the kids, and if she took them with her basically there was sod-all. And even if she left them behind with him there was still sod-all. And even if he paid over his entire salary to her every month, like that was ever going to happen, there was still sod-all. The only things she now knew for sure was that 'an up and coming'meant _shit area with failing school, '_ cosy and compact and reasonably priced' meant a _shit sized shithole about as big as a cupboard,_ and that _'_ ripe for improvement'meant _falling down or_ _dingy basement shithole_ , so basically … sod-all.

 _ **Molly and Charles**_

"Hey, come on kids let me go and say hello to Mummy and Livvie"

He'd been watching her from the doorway as the kids wrapped themselves round his legs like manacles to make sure he couldn't move as they all competed for his attention by talking at once and shouting over each other reminding him of east Ham and the Dawes clan when they all got together. But he hadn't taken his eyes off her, the way she looked always came as a surprise when he hadn't seen her for a few days. How young she looked, well she was, standing there with the baby on her hip and how much smaller and prettier she looked than the way he pictured her when he was away always gave him a jolt. He could see she was livid with him because she didn't give him much of a welcome, had barely even said hello and had just nodded at him as she'd stayed by the cooker and pretended, at least he hoped she was pretending, to be giving her undivided attention to a pan full of something that she was pulverising with a potato masher.

She'd smashed them to a pulp before she realised that she'd put in far too much milk and had turned them into a sort of sloppy gloop which made her want to cry and yell at him that it was all his fault. It was obvious that he was to blame because it was unbelievably hard to concentrate on doing something with your hands when you're pretending to be nonchalant as fuck. It brought back memories for her of trying to act as though she was completely unaware and indifferent to him standing there watching her in the FOB, an indifference that she hadn't felt then and certainly didn't feel now.

"Hello beautiful, you're still annoyed with me, aren't you? I can tell"

He bent and kissed the top of her head in exactly the same way as he'd kissed the children and then put his index finger under her chin to tilt her face up forcing her to look at him before going on in a low voice so that the children couldn't hear what he was saying "I'm sorry, are you okay?"

"Yeah, why wouldn't I be?"

She shrugged and resisted the temptation to yell "What the fuck made you think that I might be annoyed?" as he grinned at Livvie chucking her under her chin and making her giggle before lifting her off Molly's hip and sweeping her up in the air above his head. He then settled her on his hip and dropped a kiss on the top of her head laughing as he did it "I'm still in the doghouse though aren't I?"

"Yeah, you are and stop laughing, it's not funny"

"I'm sorry of course it's not funny and I'm not laughing at you, I'm laughing at Livvie, and I know I've been a complete arse, but I really am sorry, Dawsey, you might gonna have to forgive me?"

"I dunno and I said stop taking the piss" He put out a hand and tucked the fly-away tendrils of hair back behind her ear so that she had to concentrate very hard on resisting the urge to lean her face into his hand and smile at him.

"Sorry don't mean to, I can understand why you're pissed at me and I know it's my fault, but can we talk about it later on when this lot are in bed?"

"What, so you can persuade me to stop being mad at you?"

"Yup" He bit at his bottom lip, and smiled, eyes softening as he gazed down at her "Any chance it'll work?"

"Mum, Mummy" Chloe was tugging insistently at her arm "MUMMY"

"What? Wait a minute Chloe, you can see I'm talking to Daddy, just wait a minute will you?"

"But Mummy something's burning"

"Oh shit, now see what you've made me do"

Charles raised his eyebrows at the blackened pan as she snatched it off the hob and then screamed and dropped it on the floor before running across the kitchen to stick her hand under the cold water tap.

"Are you alright, let me look"

"No, it's fine, I'm fine, it was just a bit 'ot that's all, be alright in a minute"

He put Livvie in her chair and wound a cloth round the handle to pick the pan up from the floor at the same time as shoving the dog's determined nose away with his other hand. Patch was doing his utmost to get past him, all his attention totally focused on licking up the bits of debris from the floor.

"Get out of it, stupid mutt, you'll burn your nose"

He fondled the dog's ears before looking at the contents of the pan, grimacing and then biting his lip as he did his best not to grin and looked across at Molly who was still standing at the sink with her back firmly in his direction.

"What was that before it died?"

"Not funny" Her eyes had filled with tears which were threatening to overflow with the pain from her hand and general misery so that she kept her back rigidly towards him and carried on doing her level best to avoid him seeing how upset she was "That was dinner"

"Never mind, I'll go and get fish and chips shall I? Take Sam with me? Where is he by the way, you haven't sent him to Bath to be tortured by my mother have you?"

"No, he's hiding hisself upstairs, haven't hardly seen 'im since he got back but don't bother with fish and chips, they'll only eat fish when it's fingers wrapped in orange breadcrumbs, so they'd only eat the chips" She shrugged and opened the freezer door still without looking in his direction, she was doing her best not to let him see her tear-stained face "Talking about your mother we need to have a bit of a chat about her and her big gob"

"Oh God, now what's she's done?"

"It'll keep …. 'n Charlie?"

"Yup?"

"This is Sam remember 'n he's upset, right? He's not some squaddie you can put on a charge"

"I'll give him upset" He leaned towards her and patted her arm "Okay, okay don't worry I'll remember, but it's lucky for him that he's not"

"Good, Oh and remember it's not Sammie anymore, has to be _Sam_ and tell him dinner in a bit, so to come down once when you've finished with bollocking him"

Molly looked at the almost liquid potato slop and added some baked beans and then thought about putting grated cheese in as well to make it slightly more palatable with the fish fingers. She was buggered if she was going to throw it all away and put chips in the oven when she'd stood and peeled the bloody potatoes before she'd fucked up the rest, and then shrugged. The way she felt right now they could either eat it or lump it 'n go without, up to them, she'd have coco-pops later when they were in bed.

-OG-

 _ **Charles and Sam**_

Sam chose not to go down for dinner insisting that he wasn't hungry. Charles totally understood the translated sub-plot which was that Sam miles preferred to stay in his room and sulk and to play some mindless computer game which was exactly what he would have done himself at Sam's age. He would also have miles preferred to keep out of the way and play some game on a computer, had it been available, rather than have anything to eat while facing his mother when she was thoroughly pissed at him. He'd insisted that Sam switch it off while he was talking to him, so that Sam had paused the game with incredibly sulky bad grace, making loud huffing noises as he'd done as he was told, for all the world as if he was the one in the right while his father was being unreasonable. He'd then kept allowing his eyes to stray away from his dad and back to the screen so that in the end Charles had gone over and switched it off himself with an irritable flick of his fingers, ignoring Sam's howl of outrage about him losing him his place….. .

"Right, let's start with what the fuck went on at school, shall we, and don't try to pull any strokes with me Sam, I am not talking about what you might have told Molly about how it was no big deal, and we'll talk about you and Molly later, but I want the truth because I'll be onto to Richardson first thing Monday morning, and it will be far better if I hear it from you first, so come on what have you been up to?"

"Not much" Sam shrugged "Went to the pub that was all"

"I take it then that you didn't go to the pub on your own, so it was you and some of your mates? And then …..?"

Sam nodded to confirm that he'd gone with friends and then shrugged, he'd been hoping that the nugget he'd just thrown in his father's direction would be enough to satisfy him for the moment, even though he knew that when Charles carried out his threat of talking to old Richardson he was going to get a whole lot more that Sam had absolutely no wish to talk about.

"And then _what_? Don't know what you mean?"

"Don't treat me like an idiot Sam, what else went on? They didn't suspend you for going to the pub, not when you were getting ready for your re-sits, so were you stupid enough to get yourself pissed, is that it?"

"Not really"

"What's that supposed to mean? ' _Not really'_ Were you drunk or not?"

"No, none of us were drunk, we might have been a bit sort of …. well … you know, had a bit, but not like …..we weren't legless or anything like that"

"And they suspended you for being mildly tipsy, is _that_ what you're telling me?"

"Sort of"

"Sort of? What the fuck does that mean? You're not endearing yourself to me here Sam, you know that don't you? So come on stop all the bullshit and tell me what you did"

 _ **Molly and Charles**_

"He's not coming down then?" She looked at him, all traces of tears had long since disappeared "You were a long time"

"Nope, says he's not hungry"

Charles perched his bum on the edge of the kitchen table and shook his head slowly as Molly scraped the horrible mess that had once been Sam's dinner into the bin, it looked even worse now it was stone cold. Charles ran his hand through the hair on the back of his head and then looked across to where Chloe was sitting hoping that they wouldn't notice her if she kept as quiet as a mouse and pretended to read while she waited to see if she could find out what Sam had been up to. It was annoying her intensely that she still didn't know and that even when she'd snuck into his room and point blank asked him, he wouldn't tell her, had just royally pissed her off by dismissing her as a kid who wouldn't understand. Now she was determined to find out so that she could taunt him.

"Come on Chloe, bed"

"I'm doing my homework Mum and its Friday, no school tomorrow"

"Well, no need to do it now then is there? You can do it in the morning, I want you to go to bed now"

"You always tell me to get it done out the way"

"Stop bloody arguing with me and get yourself up to bed …. NOW … I mean it"

"Come on Chloe, do as Mummy says, I'm sure it'll be okay if you read that in bed"

Both Molly and Charles ignored the under-the-breath mutterings of 'it's not fair' and 'it's not my bedtime' of their eldest although Charles gave her a sharp glance when she said something he didn't quite catch about how much she hated Molly and that Millie was right, she was mean and horrible.

"So, did he tell you?"

"Yup, stupid little bugger, he's lucky they didn't call the police, I can't believe how incredibly …. well, bloody stupid … he was, it's no wonder he wants to leave school"

"Does he? He never told me that, so come on then what did he do that was so terrible?"

-OG-


	5. Chapter 5

_**A/N: Thank you for your feedback, I hope you enjoy this. Chapter 6 ASAP as CJ would say.**_

 _ **-OG-**_

 _ **Molly and Charles**_

"What he get rat-arsed did he, was that it?"

"No, might have been better if it was, as it is he's just bloody lucky they'll have him back at all" He bent his head and tugged at his hair "Little cretin and some of his dopey mates went to the pub for a drink, so began by breaking just about every school rule, but he swears they didn't get slaughtered, that they just had a couple of glasses of cider each although I'm not so sure" He chewed at his lip "But then he thought it would be a cracking idea to try a bit of pot, see what it was like, so they bought a joint from someone in the pub, god alone knows what sort of place that is, and then ….. then they all sat in his room and shared it, passed it round without giving a moment's thought to the smell, says he didn't know it smelt that strong, but apparently that wasn't the problem or so he says, Oh nooooo, no, the problem only started, according to Sam, when one of the little cockwombles, clever little bugger, inhaled and made himself sick _…. So that was when the brown stuff hit the fan_ "

"And you believe him? That that's all there was? Nothing else?"

"I'm not sure, and what do you mean is that all? Isn't that enough?" He ran his hand over the top of his head, ruffling the curls and frowning "Are you smirking, what's so bloody hilarious about that?"

"Oh come on, it was a bit stupid yeah, but hardly crime of the century was it? I did far worse than that when I was his age, didn't you? Well, no probably you didn't, but I thought he'd done some'ing terrible ….. that he'd at least smuggled some girl back with him and got hisself caught, I mean, stupid, yeah, but it was just a bit of weed, that's all, he weren't selling it or nothing was he?"

"Heaven forbid" He shook his head "You've seen that place, Molly, traditional doesn't begin to describe it, and Sam should have known what would happen if he got caught and smoking it in his room like that was bound to get him caught wasn't it? Fuck knows what his bloody mother is going to say, anyone would think he'd got a death wish or something"

"Is that a dig at me? I agree it was stupid doing it in that place, I mean I've only been there the once but even I'd know they was bound to go ape shit"

"Of course it wasn't a dig at you" He raised his eyebrows trying to disguise the fact that he'd spoken without thinking and that it had been a bit of a dig in reality.

"Could 'ave been a lot worse"

"Really? Oh good, in that case I'll tell his mother that, shall I? That'll reassure her" He tugged at the back of his neck as he visualised the way the conversation with Rebecca was going to pan out, he could see the expression of absolute outrage on her face now "And how exactly could it have been any worse? Do tell"

"No need to be like that is there, just give me a minute and I'll have a bit of think, sorry, I can see that she'll be well bloody scary" She giggled and then composed her face again "Are you sure that he didn't wanna get hisself caught? I mean you said he wants to leave there, so maybe he …." She caught sight of the horrified expression on his face "No, forget I said that, I were just sayin' that's all"

"God no, I can't believe he'd be that stupid, he knows that that sort of trouble will close doors for him if he's not careful"

"Daddy, Daaaddy"

"Millicent James, get back in your bed and stop there, don't make me have to come up there to you"

"I'll go" He swung his legs round and got off the table then grinned at her as he went to go past to go upstairs "Oh and Dawsey?"

"What?"

"They can see straight through you you know, your bark is a bloody sight worse than your bite and they all know a soft touch when they see one"

"I'm not a soft touch, I'm hard as nails, me … and stop calling me that"

"Course you are and I like you calling you that, you'll always be Dawsey to me" He smirked at her over his shoulder as he went out in the hall and then took the stairs two at a time "Full of charm and magnetism"

"Fuck off"

 _ **Molly**_

It was after a very long twenty minutes of pacing about that she decided she was sick of waiting for him to come down and that it was time to get her arse upstairs and see what the fuck was keeping him. If, as she suspected, it was Millie playing up she'd read the riot act, show her, and him, who was the soft bloody touch round here because he was a fine one to talk. Millie's door was just a bit open so that even though the night light wasn't on there was just enough light from the hall for her to see that he was stretched out on the bed next to their little buggerlugs, with his arm round cuddling her in close and looking like he was fast a-bloody-sleep as well as Millie, their heads side by side on her 'Rainbow Dash' pillow, so that it was no bloody wonder it had all gone so quiet.

Once upon a time she'd have just smiled and left him there to sleep, because even though she was annoyed with him she couldn't help it tugging at her heart strings a bit, it was well cute, but instead she cursed that she might have known the long journey would mean he was pretty knackered, because he didn't often drop off like that whereas she always did if she lay down on the bed to get one of them off to sleep. But she'd wanted him to keep his promise and talk to her, or listen to her really, when the kids were in their beds and if he stayed asleep now that wouldn't happen. And then tomorrow there'd be kids all over all day and probably Bashira, although she wasn't expecting her, and he'd have Sam out that room, there was no way he'd let him hide in there all day, more likely to have him breaking rocks or something. On top of that it was the weekend, so bloody Penny and Bill would likely show up as soon as they found out he was home, and then the shit would hit the fan with Rebecca, and that was always supposing he didn't get called away to deal with some problem by 'one of his team'.

Tomorrow night would be far too late, it would all be forgotten by then, so that even if the timing was a bit shit, and even she had to admit that it was, a bit, she was restless and irritable and hadn't seen him for over a week, although she hardly seemed to have seen him at all lately, so she didn't want to just go downstairs and watch the tele for a bit, or go to bed because she wouldn't sleep, she wanted them to talk ….. now. She watched him sleep for a bit and did her best to swallow her guilt about what she was going to do and then tiptoed in and woke him up.

-OG-

 _ **Molly and Charles**_

"Sorry, I didn't mean to drop off like that"

Like all army or ex-army he'd been fully awake the instant she'd shaken him and had obviously splashed himself fully awake with cold water so that his hair was dripping wet at the front when he came down, a fully functioning soldier in the way he'd meant it the first time he'd said it and not the way that they'd laughed and re-interpreted the phrase so that it meant something entirely different.

"It's okay"

"So, are we going to talk about it? Do you want to?"

"Talk about what?"

She was pretending a nonchalance that she didn't feel, suddenly unsure of how or where to start and afraid that once she started her tongue was going to run away with her and that all sorts of stuff would spill out, stuff that couldn't then be unsaid.

"Don't" He frowned and shook his head "Don't do that, let's start with why you weren't pleased to see me when I got home, shall we? And why you didn't want me to see that you were crying"

"I wasn't crying, well just a bit cos it hurt when I picked that bloody pan up like that 'n I was pleased to see you, I mean, I did miss you 'n that and I am glad you're home, but … it's all been a bit shitty lately"

"I know, it has a bit, hey let me look at your hand"

"No, it's fine, there's nothing to see now"

Charles perched his backside on the table next to where Molly was sitting nursing an empty mug while she stared into space and he wondered why they always ended up talking in the kitchen and not sitting in comfort in the lounge.

"God, you're a stubborn little mare sometimes, aren't you, why don't we go through and sit down?"

"I'm not stubborn and I'm alright 'ere thanks, we're sitting down already"

She didn't want to move, the last thing she wanted to do was to go into the lounge and sit next to him on the sofa because then they'd end up going to bed ….. the way they always ended up because that wouldn't solve anything, it certainly wouldn't solve the way she felt about things right now. She watched him from under lowered lashes as he got up and messed about with getting himself coffee and shook her head when he waved a tea bag in her direction asking an unspoken question with his eyebrows about getting her another cup of tea, she was awash with bloody tea, had been drinking cup after cup all evening. He moved back to sit on the edge of the table next to where she was sitting and wrapped his hands round his mug, he was now staring into space and sipping at his coffee without speaking.

She'd never been able to understand the attraction of Rosabaya, to Molly it tasted bitter, although she'd never drunk it, it was a taste that she'd experienced more times than she could remember when he'd kissed her. The exception had been when she was pregnant and couldn't even stand the smell so he hadn't been allowed to kiss her when he'd been drinking it. If there was one thing she was bloody certain of right at that moment it was that she wasn't pregnant, and even though he hadn't kept his promise and been to get himself sorted, she was fanatic about taking her pill. The very last thing she wanted was another baby.

"I can't begin to tell you how sorry I am about this last week, you were right, you shouldn't have had to deal with that and if he was anything like he was with me, you must have wanted to deck him and I had no right to get all shitty over it" She knew he was looking at her over the rim of his mug but she couldn't look up at him "It wasn't you I was annoyed with, it was me and I'm really sorry about the way things have been, words are cheap I know that and saying sorry is not enough" He snorted a laugh "I wouldn't blame you if you didn't believe me anyway, but I do mean it and I know that the last few months have been very tough on you, that this is not what you signed up for"

"No, it's not 'n you need to tell me what the fuck's going on 'ere, it weren't s'posed to be like this was it when you left the army, with you off all over the bleeding place doing whatever it is you're doing and me at home with a houseful of kids like a single mother, just like my mum actually, 'n she's better off than me cos I can't even get out there and get a job"

"Is it as bad as that?"

"Yeah, it is sometimes" She turned to look at him in the face for the first time since he'd sat on the edge of the table "I feel like I'm being really selfish, I see all that stuff on the tele about refugees 'n disasters 'n that and I know you're working your butt off doing your best to help them, but I get bored and fed up …. and bloody lonely, this is lovely here, it's a lovely house 'n all the rest, but there's not a lot else is there and don't bleeding tell me to join some'ing like your mum does"

"What, my mother's told you to join things?"

"No, I meant she joins all them committees and things because she's bored shitless and anyway she loves telling people what to do, me? I'd run them all over if I had to join in with all that shit"

"Right" He wanted to laugh at what she'd said so that he had to bite his lip to stop the smirk, he could almost imagine her aiming her car with murderous intent at a bunch of his mother's WI busybody friends.

"There are times when I sort of hate this house, hate being stuck here"

"Do you? I've always thought that you loved it, in spite of the trees, I didn't realise …. Look, you're not being selfish Moll, I'm the one who's been selfish and I know I've spent far too much of my time worrying about getting on top of this bloody job, trying to get things to work the way I think they should so that I haven't thought nearly enough about how all this is affecting you"

"Lovely, that makes me sound like I'm some sort of I dunno … someone who needs you to …. be with me all the time to help me run my life for me or some'ing, but I'm not, it's not like that, I'm me, I'm still the same me I always was, it's just that if this is how it's gonna be from now on, I need to do some'ing that's not running around after kids and waiting for you to come home, that's all"

"What do you want to do?"

"I dunno, have to be some'ing where I can put Livvie in nursery or a crèche or some'ing and has to fit in with school, so there's not a lot out there is there? I looked at rightmove today, to see what there is, you know, where there might be more sort of … opportunities but there was nothing, well nothing where we'd wanna live anyway"

She took the decision not to mention her main reason had been looking at places to go and live on her own, it would only hurt him and she was no longer sure whether it had actually been anything more than a bit of a foot-stamping tantrum because of how fed up she'd been.

"You want to move?"

"No, just said didn't I? It was just an idea, a pretty crap one as it happens, but what about you, you haven't said what's wrong with the job or why you have to work all the evenings 'n weekends 'n that, I can understand you having to go away occasionally, I always knew that that might happen sometimes, but ….." She shrugged "Are you sorry that you resigned the army?"

"Like you hating this place sometimes, yes, sometimes I am sorry, it's a very different world to the one that I was used to, it's all fucking politics and PR and making sure you don't say anything to warrant a headline in the tabloids and empire building, and there are times, far too many of them, when it's complete crap" He shook his head "Times when I feel that the last thing anyone cares about is helping the poor buggers who actually need the help"

"Do you remember what you used to say to me about not getting so in-fucking-volved, you told me that I couldn't see the bigger picture if I was fretting the little things too much, if I was too close to it? Are you sure that that's not what you're doing now? Not that I'm sayin' you're worrying about little things, but you know what I mean"

"Yes I do know what you mean and no I'm not a bit sure, in fact I think I make you right that that is exactly what I'm doing, but it's very hard not to. I want to start banging heads together, so I probably need to take a step back and lay down the law a bit more instead of trying to sort it all myself, no bugger does what I ask them to do without a whole lot of toing and froing and argy bargy, 2 section they're not, but the buck still stops with me even if they don't have to stand to attention and salute when I speak to them"

"Why 'aven't you told me this before?"

"I didn't want to worry you I suppose"

"What you thought that not telling me, that just spending all your time with a gob on you, working late every night 'n talking on the phone before buggering off to work at the weekends wouldn't worry me?"

"Do you remember the very first time I told you that I was sorry, when we were in that compound by the bridge in Afghan and I told you that all I wanted to do was make you happy?"

"Bloody long time ago now, but yeah I remember, don't remember you saying you was sorry though"

"Didn't I? You sure? thought I did, anyway do you remember what you said to me? You told me that I'd fucked up big time and I had, I knew I had, and now I've done it again haven't I? I've really fucked it up this time" He slid off the edge of the table and pulled her up so that she was standing in between his feet and was so close to him that he could see the little flecks of gold in her eyes and smell the slightly medicated lemon tang of her shampoo "I remember telling you that you were all I wanted and you know, I'd never meant anything before as much as I meant that, and nothing's changed at all since then, you're still all that I want"

"I remember how upset with you I was, I were bloody furious 'n hurt and all sorts, but I also remember how much in love with you I was that day"

"Do you still love me?"

-OG-


	6. Chapter 6

_**A/N: This is my last visit to The Barn for a while, although there are some loose ends so may go back in time, and I'm sorry it's taken a while but I've re-written it several times until it was the way I wanted it, so please be kind, because there was this temptation to keep on and on re-writing …. I have something else bashing at my brain so wanted to get on and see whether it works, not sure yet so …..**_

 _ **-OG-**_

 _ **Charles**_

"If I ask you some'ing, will you tell me the truth?"

"Of course, I always tell you the truth"

He expected her to ask him the same thing that he'd asked her, because if there was one thing he was supremely confident about, it was that she would that of course she loved him, but he needed a little bit of reassurance because of the tiny niggling little doubt that had reared its head and wouldn't now go away, the niggle that had begun when she'd hung up without saying goodbye. He'd told himself that she was just making a point and that he'd deserved it for the way he'd spoken to her about Sam's bloody exploits and that he would have called her straight back to apologise if she hadn't switched the phones off, but that niggle had re-doubled its clamour at the way she'd greeted him when he'd come home after being away for more than a week.

It had been an absolute arse of a day beginning with the astounded faces of the assorted lazy bastards that he was currently working with, none of them had liked it one little bit when he'd said they'd have to sort the problems without him just this once and that he wasn't even going to be available at the hotel or on his mobile, he was going to be on a flight home. He'd then forced himself to walk away and leave them to get on with it, knowing full well that the arguments about who was going to be in charge would take at least half the bloody day, and that nothing would get done which made him do a rapid re-think, turning on his heel and heading back to make the decision for them, before walking away again outwardly unmoved and oblivious to the glares of hatred from those who felt they'd been passed over.

Sitting in the middle seat of three with his knees practically lodged under his ears on a packed plane for endless hours made a spectacularly shitty journey back to the U.K. especially as the woman sitting by the window side of him had muttered to herself the whole bloody way. It had begun to worry him ever so slightly that she was continually reciting what sounded like prayers not to mention the way she grabbed his arm in a vice-like grip every time there'd been even the tiniest hint of turbulence or a shudder or anything, so that he'd been half expecting her to get her rosary out at any second. And then, when he'd finally got off the sodding thing at Gatwick he'd had to queue forever for his baggage, which was down to him changing his plans, Business Class, which seemed like nirvana after his journey from hell, had been full, so that he was left to reflect on how soft he was getting as he sat in the endless nose to tail traffic on the A303. Yes, the flight had been a fucking nightmare, but nothing in comparison to the fucking nightmare of a long haul on a Hercules full of squaddies without even the benefit of a proper seat. On the other hand, of course, it might be noisy as hell but as a rule squaddies don't sit and pray through the whole flight, well not that he'd ever noticed anyway. And finally, when he'd got home, the ecstatic welcome that he'd been expecting had been conspicuous by its absence.

The children had been over the moon to see him of course and he'd been equally happy to see them, grubby, happy, healthy, full of smiles and chatter, pushing each other out of the way to get closer to him, nothing whatsoever like the children he'd got used to seeing day after day. The dog was faintly delirious as well, but, and it was a huge but for him, Molly had just stood and looked at him, her green eyes huge as she'd stared. There'd been no goofy grin of welcome on _her_ face this time and no hug for him, in fact she hadn't looked in the least bit pleased that he was home a day early.

He'd known that she was fed up, that was why he'd cut his trip short. It would have been difficult to miss after the phone incident and he also knew that she was pretty pissed at him finding so little time for her and the family in recent weeks, but the job was proving to be an absolute bitch and he was struggling the whole time to get on top of it.

 _ **Molly and Charles**_

"Go on then, what is it you want to know?"

He was still confidently smirking and catching his bottom lip with his teeth as he got ready to tell her how much he loved her and how much he'd missed her as he pushed that small bubble of disquiet out of his mind.

"Is it that Sasha?"

"What? What are you talking about, is what Sasha?"

He hadn't asked in order to give himself more time to think of an answer, he was genuinely at a loss to know what the hell she was talking about as Molly desperately wished the words unsaid and wanted more than anything to kick herself. She'd had no intention of saying anything about any of this shit, nothing about the doubts and fears that wouldn't leave her alone. She hadn't even admitted it to herself when she'd been getting so bloody worked up about where the fuck her marriage had gone but all that ….. stuff ….. that had always been there, the stuff that had hidden itself but was _lurking_ in her head had festered until it built into this massive feeling of resentment so that she'd ended up dissatisfied with just about everything about her life …. and him. It was only when she realised that her most important job was making sure there was enough milk for breakfast rather than anything else. And at the heart of it, all of it, was her fear about his assistant Sasha. A girl that she'd never even met although she'd heard her on the phone enough times because she phoned him all the fucking time when he was at home, nice little chats that so often led to him dropping everything and rushing off to work, well that's what he told her, a girl that she knew had travelled out there with him, in fact, she always seemed to be somewhere around where he was and he'd never wanted to talk about her, had just shrugged whenever she'd asked, a move that made Molly burn with suspicion.

"Nothin' don't matter, forget I said that"

"Yes it does matter, come on tell me, what the fuck are you talking about?"

"Alright, it's just that I keep on wondering what's going on that's all ….. with you and her I mean?"

"Me? And Sasha?"

"Yeah, and what's so bleeding funny? There's nothing funny about it, Charles, she's with you all the bloody time isn't she? I mean, I don't know what's going on, but I do know that she's there with you and that when you're at home she calls you all the bloody time and then you go off and I'm stuck here like baby in the fucking corner but without any bugger to come along 'n rescue me, and before you say it, none of this is cos I'm needy or some'ing, that's not it at all, it's just it all feels like it's going to shit and that I can't do anything to stop it from happening"

"I wasn't going to say anything like that, I know that you're not, you've never been needy as you put it, and I have no bloody clue what a baby in the corner has got to do with anything, in fact I don't know what you're talking about, full stop, but what I do know is that nothing is going to go to shit, not while I have anything to do with it and the whole bloody idea of there being something, anything like that between Sasha and me is a joke. There is nothing going on, there never has been and there never would be and I'm really sorry about all the spoilt weekends, but I am going to sort it, I promise. It's you I love and you know that, so why the hell would I even want to look at someone else, let alone someone like her? She's a nice enough girl, she tries hard and is reasonably good at her job, but she's not you is she? It took me about two days to fall in love with you when I first met you, bloody stroppy little mare with trouble written all over you, and I've loved you ever since, so I'm sorry but I'm not going to stop now, am I? Not even if you tell me you hate me"

"I'm not going to say I hate you, am I? Is she fit?"

"I presume you're not asking me whether she goes to the gym or anything, because let me tell you I've got no idea, but if you're asking me whether she looks good, then yes I suppose she's what Fingers would call a fit bird" He leaned forward to kiss the tiny cluster of marks on her nose, the freckles that would become far more pronounced when the sun got to them in the summer "You on the other hand are not what I would call fit, or cute, or pretty, even though you're all of those things, you are what I would call gorgeous, and she hasn't got any little freckles like these"

"Been close enough to check her out for freckles have you?"

"No I bloody have not, nor will I be, anyway what about you? You still haven't said whether you still love me or not and it's beginning to sound as if you're the one who's not sure anymore, that you were looking to see if there was somewhere you could move to without me"

It was supposed to be a light-hearted remark, a joke, but the sudden tell-tale flush that instantly washed into her cheeks told him that he'd inadvertently stumbled on the truth and that was exactly what she'd been doing. Her long silence before answering his question now made him feel as if he was standing up to his knees in quicksand and the longer the silence went on the more that coming home to a Molly-free house without the children, without even the dog was beginning to look like it could be a real possibility. Sleeping alone in a cold and empty bed in a cold and empty house didn't bear thinking about.

"Yeah well might have been, a bit, but it was never going to happen was it? That was then and I was a bit fed up, so I was having a Millie strop, that's all, 'n it's nonsense innit? I can't just piss off somewhere, where would I go for fuck sake? I've got four kids, oh and an international criminal drug dealer, almost forgot about him for the minute, so that's five ….. and a dog, and absolutely fuck all money, so come on Mr bleeding Mastermind where could I go? Course I could always leave them behind for you to look after"

"Nope, you can't do that, he licks his bum"

"Who does, Sam?"

"God I bloody hope not, and anyway what about me? Would you leave me behind?"

He really didn't want to think about Sam, who'd suddenly morphed into this nightmare pain in the arse and seemed hell-bent on fucking up his life, Scamp, who didn't seem to give a shit that he needed qualifications of some sort to have any chance at all of any sort of career. What the hell was he going to do once he got his own way and left school? Charles hadn't mentioned to Molly that Sam had accused him of trying to force him to go into the army which was the last thing he was trying to do. If he was honest he'd have to say that he'd hoped that Sam would one day want to go to Sandhurst, after university, but now even getting to university was beginning to look like a bloody joke. And there was still the dubious delight of talking it all over with Rebecca to look forward to, one thing was guaranteed was that she wouldn't see it as just a bit of teenage crap like Molly did, actually he wasn't even sure that he saw it that way himself, so maybe just for once he and Rebecca could agree on something to do with Sam, that would make a nice change.

"I'm not leaving anyone to go anywhere am I? Why did you ask me when you knew all along that I still love you?"

"Do I? Well I thought I did but then, shit Molly, you scared the bloody life out of me for a bit there, I wasn't sure what the fuck you were going to say, and you're right it's out of the question, you can't go, I'm not going to let you, so we're just going to have to work something out aren't we?"

"It's not that easy though, I wanna go back out to work, I wanna _**do**_ something"

"Okay" He put his hand out to stroke her cheek wanting desperately to make everything right "We can maybe get an au pair"

"I'm sorry, did I hear right? Did you just say we could get someone in, I thought we was poor, how on earth can we afford that?"

"We can't, well we can make some little economies can't we? We can give up ….I don't know, wine say ….. and chocolate or other little luxuries like that, you know, eating?"

"Funny man" Molly pinned a sarcastic smirk on her face as they both struggled not to laugh "As long as I don't have to give up Vodka …. and I'm sorry but the chocolate stays"

"I can see that they're essentials, and anyway when you go out and get an incredible job I can retire and be a house husband, only thing worries me about that is whether you'll still fancy me if I am"

"What d'you mean, still? Don't fancy you now, do I?" She giggled as his eyebrows shot up, a huge smirk appearing across his face as he tried his best to look shocked and horrified "Alright that's a bit of a lie, and anyway won't be long before you'll be too bloody old to worry about things like that"

"Is that a challenge?"

"Might be"

He did what he'd been longing to do ever since he'd arrived home and pulled her hard against him loving the relief of feeling her body against his, and the promise of the tantalising glimpse of black lace that was the edge of her bra as he began to dot kisses on her freckles before moving down to kiss her lips, smiling back as she broke off the kiss to grin up at him. He'd meant every word that he'd said, yes, Sasha was an attractive girl that he had absolutely no interest in at all, not the way that Molly had been imagining, and some of the girl's behaviour was occasionally worryingly inappropriate. She had a very disconcerting habit of standing far too close to him so that he had to keep stepping away, and she tended to speak so softly that he had to incline his head in her direction to be able to hear what she was trying to tell him, something that he noticed didn't happen when she talked to others and he'd begun to be aware there was an exchange of knowing looks and sniggers whenever they were together in the company of any of the groups. His gut reaction had been to simply ignore it and wait for her to get fed up flogging a dead horse but maybe the time had come when he needed to re-appraise that decision, just not now.

Now he was flooded with this huge tidal wave of affection and desire for the girl standing in front of him, the girl who was grinning so that he could see the tiny chip on the corner of her front tooth that was the result of her tripping and falling over Patch in the garden. The dog had immediately started doing his best to lick whichever bit of face he could get at under her hair despite all her attempts to fend him off and the best efforts of Chloe pulling at his collar to get him off her mum. The other two had stood by looking scared, especially Marcus whose eyes had immediately filled with tears of sympathy, as she'd sat on the ground not knowing whether to laugh or cry. She'd settled for laughing in typical Molly fashion as he'd run across and lifted her off the grass to check if she was hurt, this was his wife, and this was his family and there was no possible way he was going to let any of this, the job, the rubbish with Sasha Monk, this need that Molly had to get back out there to work, none of it was going to be allowed to jeopardise anything.

She watched him closely as he bit his bottom lip in a vain attempt at controlling his happy grin so that she wanted to hug him, to hold him close, overwhelmed with affection for him as she saw the expression on his face and remembered that he was not only very tired and probably jet-lagged to buggery as well but that he hadn't even had anything to eat, whereas she'd finished the food the kids wouldn't eat so wasn't in the least bit hungry.

"I think it's time for bed"

"You tired?"

"Nope"

"You hungry, do you want me to get you something to eat"

"Nope, what I want to do is persuade my beautiful wife that it's time to go to bed, then I can show her how much I love her and how much I've missed her, but then you know all that"

"Yeah in a minute"

"You are kidding?"

"No I'm not, but if we do get an au pair you know she's not going to be some young Swedish girl with legs up to her bum and a nice smile don't you, cos believe me there's no bloody chance of that, she'll need to be more like one of them lady wrestlers or something, with a moustache, I mean, do I look stupid?"

"I don't know what you're talking about, and anyway if you've gone off me, it won't matter will it?"

"I'm not even gonna answer that"

"I was actually thinking more of getting someone like your Nan, I know we can't ask _her_ , but someone like her would be good"

"What? Some woman like me Nan who'd think the sun shines out your arse you mean?"

"She does not, well alright she does, but it's just her joke, isn't it?"

"Is it? Glad you think so, but we just need a sort of mother's help sort of person, don't we, someone nice who likes kids 'n don't mind shitty nappies and dogs" She thought for a minute "Someone who can cook a bit would be quite nice"

"Make a nice change"

"Shut up …." Molly was staring into space as she ran the possibilities through her head "You can't be good at everything and I'm ace at other stuff"

"You don't need to tell me, I know"

"Stop it, I weren't thinking about that, I was thinking about going back to being an EMT, could do the refresher 'n they said I could come back any time, that I only had to say the word and I could have me job back"

"Yep you're bloody brilliant at that as well, no question they'd want you back, they know that they'd be lucky to have you" He laughed and kissed her on the forehead "Can we go to bed now …. please?"

"Mummy, Livvie's crying, I think she's been sick"

"Don't shout and wake the others Chloe, 'n go back to bed, I'm coming"

"Oh fuck …. And you can stop laughing, it's not funny"

"Yeah it is, welcome home"

-OG-


	7. Chapter 7

_**A/N: I'm back – with a fairly lengthy chapter (sorry about that) setting the scene for life at The Barn with a stroppy teenager …. I hope you enjoy it x**_

-OG-

 _ **Charles**_

Absolute pitch dark and totally silent and he was suddenly wide awake with his heart racing and with no idea why, although he was pretty sure it wasn't that he was still on Kenyan time, he hadn't been over there long enough for his body clock to be fucked. There was really nothing to explain it, not even Patches scrabbling around on the wooden floors, floors which were never going to be the same again. The only sound filling the silence and the darkness was Molly's soft breathing as she slept peacefully next to him and there was no earthly reason why he should be on high alert, there were no potential dangers to deal with, he was at home, in his own bed, with the soft round cheeks of her bum tucked against his early morning erection and the tangled mass of her hair spread all over the pillow next to his and encroaching on his own.

He lifted the curls carefully and gently, and smoothed them away from where they were tickling him and told himself not to even think of trying to wake her up. She felt soft and warm against him so that he wanted nothing more than to bury himself in her, to hold her tight and forget everything else in the bloody world except her. But as he put his arm across her and spooned a bit closer, she muttered something unintelligible and stayed resolutely asleep, so he rolled reluctantly back onto his own side of the bed and folded his arms behind his head, then stared into the darkness and listened to the comforting sound of her breathing.

He'd rushed back the day before because being half the world away when something was wrong at home scared him. He knew she was capable of dealing with just about anything, probably as well if not better than he could, but he needed to be where she was, and her hanging up on him like that had worried him more than he cared to admit, but getting home had proved to be even more of a wake-up call. The journey had been absolute shit, but he'd got used to fucking lousy journeys over the years, noisy, turbulent, totally without comfort, the army's equivalent of endless hours spent cramped in a seat without enough leg room as he had done the day before. But it wasn't the journey or even being trapped next to some deranged female for hours on end that was keeping him awake, it was worry that he'd taken his eye off the ball.

Molly had filled him in on Sam's party piece when he was still in Kenya, and he'd behaved like some bossy prick of a Rupert issuing orders to a clueless squaddie, which, of all the stupid things to do, took first prize, but he'd been shocked when she'd told him the problem was Sammie. A problem with Bashira wouldn't have come as a surprise; he still felt that Molly took her feelings of responsibility for the girl far too much to heart, but Sam? No, that was not what he'd expected to hear and the chat he'd had with his son the night before hadn't made things any clearer.

Sam was unhappy, that much _was c_ lear, so he'd apparently decided to be a bloody teenage moron who thought he was being clever and then had to justify his actions to his father. But Charles didn't know whether it was just that, some sort of teenage angst … or attitude, or whether it was more than that, but whatever it was he needed time to think through how the fuck he was going to deal with it. It wasn't like the Sam he knew, or thought he did, but as Molly had pointed out he couldn't solve it by just threatening to put the little cockwomble on a charge. If only it was that simple.

And what the hell was all that shit about him and Sasha, where the fuck had that come from?

Being brought face to face with the consequences of leaving the army and taking up a job he still wasn't sure about was one thing, and much as he hadn't wanted to hear it, Molly was right when she said he'd been getting himself too fucking involved, something he'd once lectured her about, but listening to her say she wasn't sure she still trusted him, that she was _doubtful_ about his relationship with Sasha had been a real bolt from the blue. She hadn't accused him exactly, not outright, but there had been enough doubt and distruston her part to make her question her faith in him, in them, but she was wrong, she was one hundred per cent wrong.

He could understand she needed more, that she wanted to go back and do the job she was so bloody good at, and being at home looking after the kids on her own, cooking and cleaning and ferrying them about was nowhere near enough for her, it was a complete waste of everything she'd trained for, and that maybe some of her anger and disappointment in him were justified. He had been guilty of being thoughtless and selfish and of taking her for granted. Even though he knew that the girl, Sasha, had a crush on him, all that standing too close and calling at the weekends, and that he'd allowed a situation to develop that the Charles of old wouldn't have tolerated for a second, he hadn't encouraged it and he hadn't got the slightest desire to get involved with her.

Molly had got it wrong, but he was going to have to stamp on Sasha's behaviour around him, make sure she knew how inappropriate she was being, and that it wasn't going to happen in a million years. And as for Sam, well, every time he thought about Sam he just wanted to close his eyes and bury his head in the duvet …

The second time he woke there was the staccato sound of heavy rain hitting the windows which made the warm fug of the bed feel even cosier as he stretched and yawned and did his best to ease the painful crick in his back that was a legacy of the day before and listened to Millie yelling at the top of her voice. Someone stamped furiously up the stairs and slammed the bedroom door and Molly shouted something but he couldn't hear what, her voice muffled and half-drowned by the radio playing, the sounds of home. He took a sip of the Rosebaya she'd put next to the bed, and grimaced as the unpalatably tepid liquid hit his tongue. For some reason he was hit with a sudden vivid memory of their younger selves alone in the med tent at the FOB and him telling her he wasn't a fully functioning soldier until he'd had his first shot of coffee. He'd written on her arm, totally against regulations, it had been the first time he'd ever touched her even though she'd been an important part of his life for quite a while by then, so that walking away from her that day had been one of the hardest things he'd ever had to do. Thinking about it now it still felt like yesterday and a bloody lifetime ago.

The feelings of disquiet came back with a vengeance as he rubbed his hand on the back of his neck and tugged at the curls, suddenly very anxious for the re-assurance of her smile. He hadn't been able to keep his eyes open long enough the previous night to carry on with what they'd started in the kitchen. He'd been desperately fighting the overwhelming urge to close his eyes and let sleep get the better of him as he'd listened to her pleading with a grizzling Livvie to please give it up and go back to sleep and then nothing more …

 _ **Molly and Charles**_

The kitchen was warm and cluttered but with thankfully no sign of Sam.

"Sam still in his pit?"

"Mornin' Molly, good mornin' Livvie….."

"Oh sorry, good morning beautiful, you okay?"

He kissed her on the top of her head and did a simulation of lip-smacking pleasure towards the baby, who immediately broke into a wide toothless grin at seeing him and waved her cereal caked hands excitedly in his direction. She made little clutching motions with her fingers which he decided not to see, porridge in his ears and hair he could do without.

"Me? I'm fine, delirious"

She was trying to spoon porridge into the baby's mouth as Livvie plunged both hands in the bowl and squeezed it up through her fingers obviously preferring to lick it off the backs of her hands than off the spoon her mother was proffering. He couldn't help grinning at the mutinous expression on his baby's face as she turned her head sharply away from the spoon and then completely refused to open her mouth for her mother. She bellowed with outrage and flung her head back when Molly tried to move the bowl out of her reach, and looked so exactly like Molly when she was in a strop that it was like looking at a tiny mirror image, only with his brown eyes.

"Come on Dawsey .. what's up?"

"Don't call me that"

To his surprise there was a distinct lack of emotion in her voice, almost as if it was a tired routine response to something she no longer cared about.

"Nothing's up …. It's just this one being a bloody pain and Millie deciding if she can't have her own way, she's gonna make me sorry so she's in the middle of the sitting room floor waiting to be dead or for me to change me mind and let her do what she wants, which is not gonna happen, so she's gonna have a very long wait ….. and your mum rang, wanting to know if you was 'ome today. I would of lied, but Chloe answered the phone, so I told her she'd have to tidy up before they got here" She huffed and shrugged and then grinned at Livvie "It's her bleedin' punishment for telling the old dragon the truth"

"You didn't tell her that did you?"

"Might of done … bit of a mistake really, cos now she's gonna open her trap and tell the old bat …. the minute she gets here isn't she?"

"They're coming over later then I take it?"

"Oh yeah, course they are, gotta see their golden boy 'n make sure he's okay haven't they? Make sure I'm making a proper fuss of him now he's decided to come 'ome"

"Shit ….. sorry ….. Listen … we are okay, aren't we, Molls, I mean you and me?"

There was something about her words and tone of voice, maybe the way she'd looked at him, or actually her whole manner that was worrying, so he put down the coffee cup he was busy emptying and reached out for her. But she shrugged her hair back over her shoulders and moved far enough away that initially he couldn't reach her, before she moved back and let him put his arms round her, then leaned against him with a sigh.

"S'pose so, dunno why exactly but I do miss you when you're not 'ere"

It wasn't exactly the ringing endorsement of reassurance that he'd been looking for.

"Because you love me?"

"I wouldn't bank on that if I was you mate" She began to giggle in spite of herself when he put a finger under her chin and lifted her head up to force her to look into his face, then opened his eyes as wide as he could before pulling the whipped puppy dog face that he'd perfected over the years "And you can stop looking at me like that 'n all, that don't wash with me"

"I don't know what you're talking about" He smirked and bent to kiss her on the tip of her nose before whispering "What's up with Millie?"

"Told you, she says she's gonna stop there till she's dead"

Charles moved to the sitting room doorway and looked down at the recumbent form of his daughter and suppressed a chuckle when he saw her hastily cross her arms over her chest and squeeze her eyes tight shut when she realized he was there and looking at her. He bit his lip and turned away, doing his best not to laugh out loud.

"What happened?"

"Told you, she's making me sorry I wouldn't let her do what she wanted"

"What _did_ she want?"

"Don't laugh, it's not bleeding funny, she was s'posed to be going for her dinner at McDonalds, but not like that she's not"

Despite what she'd just said to him about laughing, Molly was now giggling as she pushed him in the small of his back into the sitting room and then stood behind him on tiptoes resting her chin on his shoulder and waving her hand in the general direction of the Disney Princess lying rigidly immobile in the middle of the floor with her arms folded across her chest like a corpse. The dress with its torn frill hanging off the bottom was at least two sizes too small so was skin tight and sporting some horrible indefinable stain down the front, but Millie had decided to team it with the high heeled plastic dressing up sandals that Bella had bought for her and which Molly kept on forgetting to 'lose' in the bin. The ensemble was completed with a plastic tiara and a tangled jumble of old costume jewelry Nan had given her, which was now draped round her neck.

"Don't mind the frock, even if it is bloody filthy and don't fit, or that she'll freeze in it cos she says she's not gonna wear her coat, and I told her she'll likely break her bleeding neck in them shoes, but she needs to wash that off her gob or she's not going, and that's that"

Charles looked again and realized the hectic flush on his daughter's face wasn't due to tears or upset as he'd first thought but from the very liberal amount of lipstick she'd rubbed onto her cheeks, so that on closer inspection she looked like a doll, a very cheap doll, or a paedophile's wet dream.

"She nicked the lippy from me bag didn't she? says she has to look pretty for Jacob cos it's his birthday and he's her boyfriend, but sorry, not happening"

"Do I need to have a word with this Jacob?" Charles was now snorting, his shoulders shaking with barely concealed laughter "How old does she have to be before we can send her off to a convent?" He bent over and picked her up, she was still doing her best to keep her eyes screwed tightly shut and to be rigid, to give the impression she was on the way to breathing her last.

"You'll get piles if you stay down there on that cold floor" He smirked and then snorted a laugh "That's what Nan always says isn't it?"

"Nan loves me so she'd of let me go, it's just Mummy that's mean, and I don't like her, I HATE her ….. please Daddy"

"Nope, Mummy said no and no it is, and you don't hate her…. but you shouldn't take her stuff without asking, then you already know that Millie"

"But Mummy would of said no, she's MEAN"

Her logic was impeccable, and even though Charles wanted to point out that knowing someone was going to say no didn't mean it was okay not to ask, but he was worried about his ability to deliver the lecture without succumbing to the laughter that was bubbling up inside him.

Millie decided the time was about right to change tactics and go down the 'I'm so hard done by, no-body loves me' route and see whether she could guilt trip her father into giving in, so began to sob and then wound her arms and legs round him as tightly as she could, burying her head in the crook of his neck so that he'd be able to feel the tears running down her face.

"Come on, stop that and go and wash your face like Mummy said and get yourself dressed properly and then I'll take you, because if you don't you won't be going, will you, and while you're down there on that cold floor, everyone else will be at the party and having fun …. without you"

Millie stopped sniveling and thought for a minute or two, she was now having difficulty in producing any more tears so slid down until she was standing in front of him with the most woebegone expression she could muster on her face. She was trying to balance her loss of face with not going to the party because she knew that if her father said it, he meant it, and it didn't matter what she did, he was not going to change his mind and give in.

"But it's not FAIR"

She satisfied herself with wailing loudly, determined to have the last word as she turned and pounded up the stairs and Molly knew she should be pleased that the stroppy little mare who was her daughter had let go of her dad to do as she was told, tantrum apparently over, but she wasn't. She'd said all the exact same things to Millie, about how she'd miss all the fun 'n that, but all the little madam had done when her mum had told her was to scream a bit louder.

"Sorry, got no time for any more of this shit"

Molly turned and stomped back to the kitchen muttering under her breath as she snatched up a damp cloth and started to wipe the congealed porridge off Livvie's hands. The baby started to whimper and squirm and then turned her head from side to side to stop her mother wiping her face and began to scream. Molly hoicked her out of the chair, she wanted to scream herself. Everything that morning had conspired to piss her off and she could feel hot tears of self-pity as they began to burn the backs of her eyes.

"Oh look it's Mary fucking Poppins ….. So come on then Mary, tell me, how did you do that exactly? I said all the same stuff and she took no bleeding notice of me at all, one word from you and she does as she's told, how come?"

"I know, I really can't explain it" Charles pretended to shine his fingernails against his top "It's a gift"

"Fuck off"

He wiped the smug smile off his face immediately he looked at her, he'd thought she was joking and still thought she was, in a way, but he'd realized a fraction too late that her green eyes were swimming in tears, and years of experience of living with her told him that she was more likely to punch him than hug him back if he did what he wanted and put his arms round her to hug her, to see if he could make her feel better. So he just grinned his best self-deprecating grin and changed the subject.

"Where are the others?"

"Well, you know where Sam is and Chloe's up there having a sulk 'n all" Molly shrugged "Says she's not gonna tidy up anything that's not her mess so I said she can bloody stop up there till she does as she's told and Marky's doing his project, some history thing" She shrugged "At least one of them knows how to be'ave, 'n you know how he hates it when everyone starts yelling. Sam's s'posed to be helping him, so I hope he's got over hisself and is being nice .."

"Lovely …. …."

Charles felt a sharp pang of conscience as he thought about his younger son. Marcus was so much like he'd been as a child, a bloody carbon copy, not only to look at, and even Charles could see that Marcus was an exact replica of the little boy he'd once been, but how quiet he was and how much he hated conflict, which the girls seemed to thrive on.

"I'll go up and see how he's getting on, and I'll have a word with Sam, see what's … well, I just need to sort out where we go from here"

 _ **Molly**_

When he'd been off doing whatever it was he was doing, and whatsherface had been there with him doing whatever it was she did, Molly had been bloody desperate for him to be at home, with her, and away from bloody Sasha.

But she was dead sorry now that when he'd come home it was to her pity party, so he probably couldn't wait to get away again. She'd feel like that if it was her.

She hated that it all felt a bit shit. When he'd smiled at her a minute ago he'd looked exactly like he did when she'd first known him in Afghan and she'd thought he was one of the best looking blokes she'd ever come across, total bloody knob, of course, but she used to wish she was better looking so that he'd notice her, had never thought he would look at someone like her, but he had. And now she was dead scared she was fucking it up, that she was losing him but couldn't seem to help it.


	8. Chapter 8

_**A/N: Thank you for all the lovely reviews, I really appreciate them and a special thanks and welcome to all the new names who've reviewed and f &f'd, it's lovely to hear from new voices, as well as from old friends (who I'd be lost without).**_

Apparently Chloe was hoovering the sitting room with a great deal of enthusiasm when he got home, at least he presumed it was her by the way the bloody thing was being bashed into furniture legs and skirting boards and the way her voice was belting out something that was vaguely recognizable as by Beyonce. But at least it was a happy noise and it came as a relief that she'd decided to do as she was told while he was out delivering Millie to Amesbury, it meant he wasn't going to have to 'have a word' after all. He hadn't been home nearly enough in recent weeks to want to start playing bad cop with the kids, but on the other hand leaving it all up to Molly wasn't fair and it was his bloody mother who was about to show her face.

What he didn't know was that Molly had bribed Chloe. She couldn't face another battle after the protracted one she'd had with a baby who was determined to bawl her head off and not under any circumstances shut her eyes and go to sleep, even if she was knackered, so by the time she finally gave in it already felt like it had been an endless bloody day to Molly. She'd have loved nothing more than to curl up with Livvie and go to sleep herself, but the place was a shit-hole and in desperate need of a quick lick and promise before the old dragon got there.

Chloe was another stubborn little mare but was mercenary, so was open to bribery. She was also unbeatable at shoving stuff out of sight in cupboards and getting the worst of the dog hairs off of everything so that even though she drove a hard bargain, Molly felt it was worth every penny if it meant she'd have time to shower in peace before the old bat arrived … Penny had eyes like a hawk for dust and muddle and clutter and wouldn't think twice about barging in and start picking things up, something her mum and Nan did as well when they visited, especially her Nan, but Molly didn't mind when they did it. They understood how hard it was when you've got a house full of kids, but bloody Penny on the other hand would huff and puff and mutter away under her breath which made Molly feel guilty and as if she should be helping or saying sorry for the mess or something. Charles always told her to just ignore the old bat and let her get on with it, but Molly couldn't.

From the off his mother had always made her feel that she wasn't quite good enough for the golden boy, that she didn't speak properly and was a bit too common, and even though she'd hidden it well on occasions when it suited her, it had always been there bubbling away under the surface. The woman made her feel inadequate, so that the last thing she wanted was to let her in when the place was a complete shit-tip.

-OG-

Charles perched his bum on the edge of the kitchen table and returned her tentative little smile with a broad grin, before putting his head back and laughing out loud. He grabbed her and looped his arms round her waist so that she was standing in between his legs and he could stop her moving away. To his eyes she looked a hell of a lot better than she had earlier, she was smiling and her hair was all shiny and silky where it was hanging down her back as she hooked her thumbs in it and pushed it back from her temples, and then leaned in towards him as he gently stroked a finger down her cheek. He tucked a stray tendril of hair behind her ear before dropping a kiss on the tip of her nose. A kiss that was full of relief and happiness that in the time it had taken him to take their little drama queen to her party the Molly he knew and loved seemed to be back with him.

"One more coffee and then I'm going up to try and talk to Sam, see if I can get any bloody sense out of him this morning … bit more than last night anyway"

"That'll depend on what sort of mood he's in, whether he's in grunting mode or not … so come on then Boss, what you gonna say to him? I mean, I know you might find this hard to believe" she giggled "But I was a bit like him when I was his age, I thought I knew everything, didn't I? Well I did of course" She giggled again "But it still got me into all sorts of bother"

"You never told me you used to smoke pot at school, or that you gave it to your friends to try so that you got suspended for drug dealing"

"He's not a drug dealer, don't bleeding exaggerate, and nah, course not …. That's not what I'm sayin', well, would've had to turn up at school in the first place to do any of that stuff, wouldn't I? Anyway, I didn't know anyone I could get it off, otherwise I might …. Nah, course I wouldn't …" She giggled and shook her head and tried to look innocent as he raised his eyebrows and looked a bit askance before laughing "Did plenty of other stuff though, and I know it's hard for you to believe this now, but I could be a bit arsey when I thought people was telling me what to do"

"You?" He shouted with laughter full of faked disbelief "Arsey? Noooooo, never, don't believe it" He stopped and thought for a second, narrowing his eyes "Like what? What did you do?"

"We're not talking 'bout me are we? Look, all I'm sayin' is just, you know, remember that this is Sammie and not some bloody cockwomble squaddie, and it's not the end of the bloody world, he 'asn't robbed a bank or killed someone, it was just a bit of weed, not class 'A's, so be nice"

"I'm always nice"

"Oh yeah, forgot" She leaned forward and kissed him lightly and then let her lips linger on his, nibbling on his bottom lip before pulling back and giggling when he tried to move in and deepen the kiss, she was suddenly a hell of lot happier than she had been for days. There was no good reason for it that she could think of, she just was "I keep forgetting that you're the kiddie whisperer"

"Piss off Dawsey"

"Okay" She flung her hair back over her shoulder again and flounced out of his reach across the kitchen, looking over her shoulder as she went and deliberately swaying her hips from side to side in an exaggeratedly provocative and sexy wiggle so that he groaned.

"Oi, I didn't mean literally, come on, come back and give me a cuddle"

"Nah, just doing what I'm told, aren't I? Obeying orders, you told me to piss off, so I'm pissing off"

"You know I didn't mean it like that" He opened his eyes as wide as he could and tried his whipped puppy dog face on her again "I need a cuddle"

"I know, I could tell …. but I can't come over there, your mum's gonna be 'ere any second"

"Shit … and stop laughing ….God, you're cruel" Charles stood up and adjusted the front of his jeans as Molly watched and laughed even harder "How to kill the mood stone dead in one easy move, well done"

"I know" Molly rolled her eyes and sniggered "It's a gift"

-OG-

He was still laughing as he bounded up the stairs to pop his head round Sam's door before realizing far too late that he really should have knocked first. He could hear Marcus had apparently abandoned the history project in favour of reading aloud to the dog, both of them comfortably ensconced on Marcus' bed, which was totally forbidden, but which he decided to ignore for much the same reason he'd been glad he hadn't had to be bad cop to Chloe.

But Sam wasn't the same age as Marcus. Charles couldn't just ruffle his hair and smile at him and turn a blind eye to him breaking the house rules, he wasn't a kid, and the speed with which he slammed down the lid of his computer told Charles that whatever it was he'd been accessing it was something he'd really prefer his father not to see. He could only hope that if it was, as he suspected, some sort of porn then it wasn't the variety that could get you traced and arrested.

"DAD ….. you could at least have knocked"

He was definitely more than a bit flustered as he glared at his father, his tone of voice was full of self-righteous reproach so that Charles was even more convinced that he'd been up to something he was ashamed of, but he also felt a pang of guilt. Sam was right, he was entitled to privacy at his age.

"Sorry … you're right"

"What do you want anyway?"

"I need …. I think we need to have a chat about what's been going on"

He took a deep breath, this was going to be a lot harder than he'd anticipated. Given a straight choice he'd rather stand in front of a group of squaddies and lecture them on what was expected of them, it was easier.

"I'm not talking about whatever it was went on at school, I'm not worried about that … well, I am, of course I am, but that's not what I'm talking about here"

Shit. He'd basically just given the little so-and-so permission to fuck it up at school before realizing what he was saying and trying to backtrack, and that once again Molly had been right, he should have thought this through more carefully before he'd even started. Sam was staring steadily at him without any trace of an expression on his face, and a very nasty suspicion dawned on Charles that the stern unsmiling look was the same one he had on his face when he was seriously peeved with someone or something, and that Sam had learned it from him. Charles took a deep breath and ploughed on, it was too late now to press rewind, to go back out the door and start again.

"I'm … unhappy with the way you've been behaving, giving Moll a hard time, you're not a kid anymore, Sam, so I would have thought I could rely on you to at least behave yourself when I'm not here … but it would appear not"

"Well that'd be most of the time then, wouldn't it?"

"What? What did you say?"

"You heard me ….. you're never bloody here are you? You're always off doing something important somewhere for someone, and you said that would change now you're not in the army anymore, that things would be different, but they're not are they Dad? Although why that should surprise me I don't know, all my life it's been the same story and never mind about … look, it doesn't matter… I'm sorry about Moll, I didn't mean to upset her, I'll apologise"

Sam half turned away and began doing everything he could to demonstrate insouciance, to show Charles that it didn't matter what he'd come to say, he was going to ignore it anyway, so made a big show of opening up his laptop and turning it back on then keying in his password instead.

Charles took a deep breath and told himself to calm down and start again. Molly had tried to warn him against confronting a morose teenager with attitude when she'd sworn blind that Sam was just like she'd been at his age, although Charles hadn't been sure that he believed her at the time, now he wished he'd listened more closely.

"That would be good …. look, do me a favour Sam, and cut the attitude … and please turn that bloody thing off when I'm trying to talk to you"

Sam took a couple of seconds to weigh up whether to simply ignore him and make a big show of doing something before logging off in his own sweet time or whether to switch off again in such a way that demonstrated a complete lack of interest in the lecture that was coming his way, even though he felt faintly guilty for apparently upsetting Molly, which he hadn't meant to do. So he shrugged and then closed the lid with a big sigh of petulant obedience.

"Right, it's off …. Satisfied?"

.

"Thank you …"

Charles swallowed hard and raised his eyebrows, staying silent and looking steadily at Sam as he waited for him to apologise. He had no idea who the little sod thought he was talking to and desperately wanted to remind him that a bit of respect would be good, but instead made a huge effort and swallowed the words before they could escape. He had to remember that this was Sam, and this wasn't like him, not the Sam he knew, or thought he did, so that he was now beginning to worry there was possibly something else going on here that he wasn't aware of, something he hadn't noticed.

"Sorry …"

The apology when it finally came was a morose grunt which Charles decided to accept without further comment and pretend it was sufficient.

"Okay, but you know my job has always taken me away Sammie, sorry, Sam, you've always known that it's just the way it is, so come on, what's this all about? Spit it out"

"I said, it doesn't matter"

"Well, it obviously does …."

Charles took a deep breath, he could hear the irritably frustrated tone that was beginning to creep into his voice and took a deep breath, and made another huge effort not to react to the provocation that was being directed his way. Sam seemed to want to pick a fight with him.

"Look, I know you said you want to leave school, and I can understand that, but it's just a few more weeks, Sam, that's all, just get the exams out of the way and then …. Well …. have you decided what you want to do next?"

"You still don't get it do you Dad? It won't make any difference how many times I take the bloody exam, I'm not going to pass it, I'm no good at that stuff … I'm okay at other things, just not that"

"Hang on, just hang on a minute here Sam, first of all I'm sure you can do it if you set your mind to it …. But what have they said at school? Have you talked to anyone about this?"

Charles felt a huge surge of relief, was this all that was wrong, just exam nerves, fear of failing again? But instinct was telling him it couldn't be that easy, that something was wrong with the picture, he just couldn't work out what. On the other hand, maybe he'd be wise to take notice of what Nan always said about not seeing trouble where there wasn't any.

"I don't want to do it and I don't need to talk to anyone at that poxy school, I've spent years at one poxy school after another, haven't I? Always shoved off somewhere but you know what Dad, it doesn't matter how much money you and mum have thrown at it, I don't want to do it and … guess what? I'm not going to"

"Don't let your mother hear you calling it that"

"No, probably costs a bloody fortune so it must be good, eh Dad?"

Charles was suddenly aware of just how hard he was tugging at the curls on the back of his neck, shit, he was going to end up bald at this rate and now to add to it, he could hear a commotion that told him his parents were downstairs in the hall and that Molly would be looking to him to get his sorry arse down there and rescue her from his mother.

"Sam, can we talk later? That's Gran …. I'll have to go down"

Sam shot him a horrified look "Don't tell her anything will you Dad?"

"No, not if you don't want me to"

"No I don't, if you tell her she'll be on the phone to Mum before you can turn round and then I'll have her on my back as well"

"No-one's on your back Sam and your mum is going to have to know at some point …. But never mind all that now, we'll talk about it later"

Charles wasn't sorry he'd promised to keep the whole thing to himself for a bit, he had no wish to be on the receiving end of one of his mother's outpourings of advice on how to make a teenage boy toe the line. Nor was he keen to rush to tell Rebecca anything so that she could harangue him with one of her diatribes on what a sorry excuse for a father he was. He needed to be a lot more sure of his ground before he told either of them anything, Sam was quite right about the hot line to Dubai.

-OG-

" _Sammie_ , hello darling, how lovely to see you, we weren't expecting you to be here were we Bill? Is it half-term already? I don't know, the terms seem to get shorter and shorter, it only feels like yesterday you went back" Penny kissed Charles fleetingly and then moved to hug Sam fiercely, kissing him on both cheeks.

"Nah, study leave, you know, exams 'n that"

Molly jumped to Sam's rescue without a moment's hesitation which earned her smiles of appreciation from both Sam, who'd looked for a moment like a rabbit caught in the headlights, and her husband who hadn't had her years of experience in telling lies to cover her arse. Her quick thinking excuses still came in handy sometimes, and she had absolutely no wish to have the ramifications of Sam's difficulties at school discussed and picked over with her in-laws and with Chloe as an interested participant, and definitely not until her and Charles had shared all the gory details. She only wished she'd thought of warning Chloe to keep her gob shut. She didn't have to worry that Marcus would say anything, he wouldn't, she knew that, he hardly said anything to his grandparents anyway, something that sometimes worried Molly a bit.

"So, how are you then Charles? Your dad and I keep seeing these awful things on the news and we know it must be something that you're involved in, and a lot of it really looks most unpleasant" She leaned across and patted Charles on the arm "It must be very hard, you look exhausted"

Molly bit her lip, she wanted to say it was even harder for them poor buggers who were the victims of all the shit, but knew it would be a waste of breath, it would either sail straight over Penny's head, or she would take umbrage and be all hurt and misunderstood, but not enough to make them piss off back to Bath. A martyred Penny was definitely more than she could stand. So she didn't listen to what Charles was telling them and concentrated instead on keeping her mouth shut and wondering how long they were stopping and whether or not they were intending to stay for their lunch, because if they were she hoped they'd appreciate beans on toast, or if they were really bleeding lucky, alphabet spaghetti.

"Did Mummy tell you, Gran, that she's going back to work?"

Chloe saw the expression that appeared on Molly's face as she heard what Chloe said and shook her head violently from side to side in horrified denial.

"Nah, it's just an idea, nothing settled"

"But that's what you said, you did say that Mummy, I heard you, you and Daddy were talking about it last night 'n you said you was gonna get someone in to look after us … and Daddy said ….."

-OG-


	9. Chapter 9

_**A/N: Thank you for your welcome back to the Barn and I am glad you're still enjoying it – will post the next chapter asap, but be warned, it may be a little angsty – Thank you also to all the new names I keep seeing on the feedback, it's lovely and I really do appreciate it, and thank you also to all the people who have been following this from the very start – don't know what I'd do without you x**_

Molly could remember doing exactly the same thing when she'd been a kid. Tucking herself away out of sight behind the sofa so she could listen to her mum and Nan gossip about people, mind you if she'd been caught she'd have had a sore bum for her trouble. Not that she'd ever told anyone anything she'd heard, mainly because there'd never been anyone to tell who would have given a shit. Still, because she used to do it didn't mean she wasn't bloody mad at Chloe, little so-and-so should just count herself lucky they didn't do smacking, she'd been told before about doing that sort of thing.

But Chloe wasn't thinking anything of the sort. She knew it wasn't her fault, it was theirs, her mum and dad so it wasn't fair, and if they'd told her what was going on with Sam she'd of known so wouldn't have had to sit on the stairs trying to find out what he'd done.

"I didn't know you were thinking of going to go back to work Molly, I must say I am a _bit s_ urprised with Olivia still so young ….. but then I'm sure you know best …"

Penny smiled her particular brand of smile, the fake one that didn't go anywhere near her eyes. It was quite obvious she thought the complete opposite as she turned away and looked at Charles and began to talk to him as if Molly wasn't even there.

"But darling, why on earth would you think about getting some stranger in to look after her when you know I'm never going to be too busy to look after my granddaughter, or any of my grandchildren for that matter, you have to be so careful these days, I mean you've only got to pick up a paper to read about all sorts of things"

Penny might not be talking to her, she wasn't even looking in her direction, but Molly was buggered if she was going to stand there in silence while the old hag discussed her with Charlie as if the arrangements for the kids had nothing to do with her. She'd been standing there idly wishing she'd told Chloe not to open her gob about Sam, she'd been bothered she might tell them about having to go to his school to collect him because he was in deep shit, but it had never crossed her mind that little Miss Big Ears had been on the stairs eavesdropping, and that she'd open her big trap and tell the old bag what she'd overheard.

"It's not a done deal or nothing, it was just a bit of an idea"

Molly glared at Chloe, daring her to contradict, as Penny turned and looked at her as though the dog had suddenly expressed an opinion, and then turned back to Charles who was hiding his dismay much better than Molly was. Even so she could see that he was struggling to come up with something that didn't include _over my dead body_.

"Lovely … that is really, really good of you, Mum, but ….. you won't want to drive backwards and forwards from Bath every day will you? It's a fair old trek and you know Molly's job means some very anti-social hours, early starts, late nights, that sort of thing, even the occasional weekend, and what with me being away a lot as well …. Nope, it's lovely of you to offer, and we really do appreciate it, don't we Moll?'

He paused and looked in her direction, obviously willing her to nod which she dutifully did, vigorously, although she didn't say a word, she was just hoping he'd get the mental message she was sending him about not sounding too bloody grateful. But she'd definitely give him ten out of ten for quick thinking, it had been impressive the way he'd come up with a good reason for saying no which wouldn't upset anyone.

"But it's really not practical is it Mum? Anyway as Molly says it's only an idea at the moment, nothing definite" He shook his head and smiled blandly at his mother.

"Well, that needn't be a problem, darling, you know I'd be only too happy to come and stay during the week if I was needed and I can even stay the occasional weekend, your Dad won't mind, will you Bill?"

"No, not a bit"

What? What the fuckety fuck did he just say? Molly narrowed her eyes and glared at him. What she really wanted to do of course was go over and kick him where it hurt, hard. What was his game? He'd know exactly what she'd feel about that suggestion, he'd spent a great deal of the last few years quietly letting the old bag get on with it, but he knew, for fuck sake and now it looked like she was the only one who thought he could have made some excuse to stop her getting all carried away with herself. He could of said he was unhappy with her buggering off and leaving him to look out for himself even if it was a lie, but then maybe all he could see was a nice holiday from her.

"Well, as I said, Mum, no need to make any decisions now"

Charles' diplomatic smile was firmly in place as he put his arm round her shoulders and hugged her into his side before dropping a light kiss on the top of her head.

"It's early days, but if, when, Molly does go back to work and we need help sorting out something for the kids we'll definitely bear it in mind"

Molly forced a fake smile to her lips which felt more like she was baring her teeth in a snarl, but even she could see that he couldn't say anything else really. Not only would it be dead rude but he did care about his mum, he loved her despite the fact she was an aggravating old bag, and he would hate to upset her even though she didn't know how to take 'no thanks' for an answer. Bloody woman was like some sort of Rottweiler who wouldn't let go when she got hold of an idea in her head, although to be fair she did think she was doing something nice for them, well, for him, but it was not going to happen. Molly would rather stay at home herself and spend her days bouncing off of the walls with boredom than let Penny move in to look after the kids. She didn't even seem to like them all that much, she mainly ignored Marcus, which probably suited him just fine, but she said horrible stuff about Millie, and her and Charles were the only ones allowed to criticize their little drama queen, and Sam's face had been a bloody picture when he'd realized Penny was talking about practically moving in. So much so that Molly had been tempted to exchange an eye-roll of horror with him, before telling herself it was inappropriate. Olivia, of course, was too little to care one way or the other, so Chloe was the only one out of all of them who'd think it was a good idea and luckily she had no bloody say in it.

Penny wasn't that keen on Patches either, which Molly always reckoned was because he wasn't pedigree enough, a bit like her really, or it could be that he sniffed her crotch a lot, or tried to. Maybe they could use him to try and put her off, remind her that he would need taking out for walks, lots of them, and that she'd have to go round behind him picking up his shit.

-OG-

Charles was standing at the cooker smirking happily as he stirred beans for six at the same time as keeping an eye on their unreliable toaster to try and avoid setting off the smoke alarm. He began to drag his teeth over his bottom lip pulling it into his mouth as he began doing his level best to wind her up as she spooned some disgusting looking lamb stuff into a ravenous Livvie. They had already had one little fight in whispered undertones over who was going to get lucky and escape to collect Millie, an argument that he'd won by simply pointing out that his mum and dad would probably leave and go home if he went out. Molly could only hope he was right, her limited patience was already well stretched.

"Nice of Mum to offer to help with the kids I thought"

"Yeah, I could see that was what you thought" Molly put her fingers up in inverted commas in the air to show she was quoting him as well as stage whispering "We'll talk again when Molly decides to go back to work" She shot him an exaggerated scowl "Excuse me, but what the fuck was that all about? And did you really think she was being nice? Which bit exactly? The bit where she said this one is too young to be abandoned by her shit mum? Or maybe it was when she said I was gonna get them looked after by some nutjob who does child abuse for an hobby?"

"Oh yeah, suppose there was that"

"Yeah … and stop smirking, it's not bleeding funny and … if you say one bloody word about how she means well you'll be sleeping in the spare room"

"Wouldn't dream of it"

"Good"

"Hey ….." He put his hand on the back of her neck under her hair and laughed softly as he began to rub his thumb in small circles "I'm sorry about mum, about the way she is sometimes"

"S'alright, it's not your fault your mum's an old harpie that hates me, is it?"

"She doesn't hate ….."

The grin on her face was wiped away in an instant when his mobile started to ring for the third time in less than an hour and he checked the caller's ID before he rejected the call, also for the third time. But he didn't tell her who it was, not that she needed him to tell her, she was pretty bloody sure she already knew who it was.

"Lunch ….. come on kids, Mum, Dad, come and get it"

He was busy being all hearty as he settled everyone round the table, and put his hand on Marcus' leg to stop him kicking the table leg and then told him and Chloe to stop their bickering over who had the most elbow room and who was most squashed, and all the time he successfully avoided meeting her eyes. He knew full well she'd have added two and two and come up with one name.

But Molly had decided not to say anything, he knew that she knew who it was and he'd already be feeling bad enough, even though she was tempted to make him feel a whole lot worse by encouraging him to speak to the girl while she sat there and listened. But there was too big an audience so he'd probably bugger off somewhere where there was no-one making a racket and where there'd be no-one listening in either, and she didn't want that, not today, not with his mum and dad there which would mean she couldn't say anything remotely shitty.

Her bloody in-laws gave each other a raised eyebrow glance as they sat down and looked at the plates of baked beans, and even though they didn't say anything, she felt an instant urge to wade in and defend herself. She badly wanted to point out that it wasn't her fault they'd decided to come for their lunch without giving her any notice, not that it would have made a lot of difference if she had known, but she couldn't help it, she hated the way the old bag made her feel so .. fucking useless. For some reason Bill didn't have that same effect, although right at that minute she wasn't best pleased with him either. She stopped herself from saying anything when his phone rang, again.

"Hadn't you better get that? Might be it's important"

She smiled as sweetly as she could and gestured in the direction of his phone trying not to grit her teeth, especially when Charles picked it up and looked to see who it was and then went to swipe the red button. Molly knew that if he didn't answer it the bloody girl would just go on and on ringing him and that he would talk to her eventually, more than likely when he was in the car on his own fetching Millie, and she didn't want that, for some reason she badly wanted to hear how he sounded when he talked to her.

"Sasha"

Molly couldn't help being pleased that he didn't sound pleased, he sounded tetchy and irritable and was tugging at the curls on the back of his neck, a sure sign he was bothered and then he began to drum his fingers on the table all impatient. He listened to whatever long-winded tale of woe she was spouting, then sounded exactly like arsey Captain James of old when he snapped out something about being grateful for her letting him know but that he'd deal with it Monday. Molly hated the way she was sort of listening so carefully to his tone of voice, hated that she was trying to see if she could hear something in what he said or the way he said it that would show there was something going on between them, but there was nothing, not that she could hear and he had said it was her imagination. He'd said it wasn't happening, so really that should be enough for her.

"You look a bit worried, is everything okay, darling?"

"Fine"

He was terse to the point of being almost rude as he answered his mother's concerned enquiry and then apologized for snapping at her, although Molly didn't think he sounded particularly contrite, he just sounded like Captain James was back.

-OG-

"You might be wrong, maybe it is just cos he thinks he's gonna fail and that his mum'll go ape-shit, that she'll wanna keep him in that prison till he's forty"

"I wish I could believe that, but it feels as if I'm missing something, Molly, something he's not telling me …. just wish I knew what it was"

"Hey … all you can do is ask"

Charles had issued Chloe with a 'pain of death' warning about private conversations being just that, private, but Molly had still carefully checked the stairs for any interested listener's in before they'd started talking about Sam. Although she obviously couldn't be sure, she thought Charles might well be over-reacting. To her it seemed like the little bugger might have been taking lessons from Millie on how to be the big brother equivalent of a drama queen.

Charles put down his empty wine glass and picked up her hand, looking at it carefully then measuring it against his, laughing at the difference in size as he twined his fingers with hers and began to rub his thumb across her knuckles.

"Remember?"

"Course"

Of course she bleeding remembered, how could she ever forget? For a second she was back in that hot tent in the FOB holding hands with the CO she'd had this huge crush on for months, and filled with an almost unbearable sadness at the way Rolex Boy had been slaughtered.

Charles moved his hands up to her hair and loosened it from its high pony tail, shaking it gently free before he ran his fingertips along her scalp and then slid them gently down her face until he was cupping her chin and tilting it towards him. He leaned forward to move his lips gently over hers silently asking her to open her mouth when he touched the tip of his tongue against hers and breathed out, and suddenly they were kissing as though it was the first time they'd ever kissed each properly. It was a kiss that quickly became hard and full of passion and she could feel the blunt hardness of him where he was pressing against her thigh.

Their clothes were spread in a trail from the door which he'd kicked shut behind them, he'd been muttering in her ear the whole time he'd been carrying her up the stairs saying he was going to get a lock fitted on the door or maybe get a "Do Not Disturb notice they could hang on the doorknob now that the house was filled with nosy bloody kids. Molly had giggled and pointed out that it would be like hanging a sign out for them to come and see what was going on, what it was they were missing.

Now he was lying warm and heavy on top of her with that look on his face that she wished she could bottle and then she could take it out and look at it when she was on her own and miserable, when she was missing him so much she was beginning to imagine all sorts.

He began to drop little kisses over her face and down her neck, kissing her under her chin and round to nibble her ear before she lifted her arms and put them round him, holding him down on her and stroking the muscles of his back until her hands cupped his bum. She heard him give a throaty chuckle as he rolled off and lay flat on his back with his hands folded behind his head, laughing as he told her he was making it easier for her to access all the other bits of him that had missed her and that were begging to be stroked.

Molly moved her hand and touched him, stroked him down the muscles of his chest and then traced the silvery line of the scar on his abdomen making him shiver as he moved his arm to lift one of her hands and compare the size against his again.

"I love how small you are"

"I know you do"

"You fit me, you know that don't you?"

She was lying in a warm haze of happiness and satisfaction, and right at that moment she couldn't think why the hell they wasted so much time, hours, days, weeks even, all the time they spent bickering, or dealing with kids and his ghastly bloody mother when they could have been doing this, well, maybe not all the time, but a lot more than they had recently.

"You know I'd never do anything to hurt you, don't you?"

"Ditto"

"I know you wouldn't …. you ….. and the kids, you mean the bloody world to me, and I know I fuck it up sometimes, well a lot of the bloody time, but making you happy is still the only thing that matters to me, the most important thing …. I just forget to tell you as often as I should"

"As long as that's all you forget … and you do make me happy"

It was easy at that moment to tell herself she was happy, that everything in her life was the way it always had been after they'd just made love the way they had, and she was telling the truth, she was happy, most of the time, but there was this bit of her that hadn't used to be there that was worried it was slipping away.

"Are you hungry?" His head was resting on her stomach which was making loud gurgling noises.

"Nah" She smirked as her tummy gave another loud rumble "Well okay I lied, alright a bit"

"What have you actually eaten today?"

"What you didn't notice? About half hour ago ... Must be losing me touch … or maybe you just got a bleeding short memory … Probably your age"

"MOLLY" He pretended to be shocked "Oi"

"What? … Sorry" She giggled as he picked up her hand and put it on his groin so that she could feel the way he reacted to what she'd said "Show off …. yeah, I am a bit hungry as it happens, but I'm not gonna get something cos I'd have to put me clothes on in case Sam's down there and then I'd have to put butter on the bread and get the cheese out the fridge, 'n I'm tired ….. 'aven't got the energy, well I have, but I'm savin' it for something else, so what I need is someone nice to go and do it for me" She giggled "And they can put the kettle on while they're there"

"Good job I love you isn't it?" He laughed "What are you saving your energy for?"

"Not sayin' ….. Does that mean you're offering?" She smirked and tightened her fingers round him, moving them gently to make him groan "Knew there was a reason I married you … apart from the obvious of course…"

"Well, let go of me then ….."

"Oh yeah, forgot"

He put his hand down and loosened the grip of her fingers, groaning again as she moved her hand incredibly slowly to let him go. She watched as he swung his legs off the bed and stretched his back.

"You'd better put something on before you go down in case Little Miss Big Gob sees you …. you don't want her talking to your mum again, do you?"

-OG-


	10. Chapter 10

_**A/N: This is totally a piece of fluff that I wrote last night when I couldn't sleep – it is totally out of sequence and is a sort of a one shot but it features my favourite family at the Barn and is hopefully nicely feel good Christmassy (or at least I hope so) I haven't given up on the rest of Unforeseen or Dearly Beloved –but I have just taken a short step away because I was having trouble "seeing" it, and have to see it if I'm going to like what I write. This kept popping in my brain – so here goes. I hope everyone has a really lovely Christmas xx**_

"I'm not going to and you can't make me"

"Come on Millie, stop it, you know we've gotta get it sorted ... I 'aven't got time for all this"

"Don't care, I'm not going to, I look stupid"

"Nah you don't ... who said that anyway?"

"Markie"

Millie snivelled, not entirely sure who she was most cross with, her brother or her mother or just the whole world in general for making her do all sorts of things she didn't want to do. Although at that moment there was the potential bonus of maybe getting her brother into trouble, and it wasn't going to make any difference, she was still determined she wasn't going to co-operate and that no-one could make her.

"Marcus James, get yourself in here right now, I want you"

Marcus had been curled up in the corner of the sofa lost in the library book he was reading. He would have normally ignored the first request from his mother in favour of pretending he hadn't heard her, but she had on her 'do as you're told ... or else' voice so he knew she wasn't going to let him off anything.

"What?"

"Don't say _"what"_ like that to me"

Molly's response was automatic, she sometimes felt like a bit of a broken record, she said the same things so many times.

"You do" Marcus scuffed his toe on the floor and then looked up under his eyelashes and thought for a second "You do it all the time ... and Daddy does as well"

"Yeah well, that's different" Molly had a horrible suspicion that he was dead right and made a mental note to try and stop doing it and to tell Charles that 'n all, then changed the subject "We're not talking about me and your Dad, did you tell your sister she's gonna look stupid"

"Well, she started it"

"I don't care who started it ... why the f.. why can't you lot just be nice to each other? You wanna watch it or Father Christmas will hear you and he'll start lobbing things out the sleigh"

"Miss Crawford says that's a fantasy, and that there's so such ..."

"And you can shut up 'n all Chloe"

Molly glared at her eldest daughter where she was sitting at the kitchen table supposedly doing her English homework but was in fact drawing pictures of her current passionate obsession. She was currently lobbying for a pony of her own which her mum was adamant wasn't going to happen, but then that was what they'd said about getting a dog.

"Millie, please, will you just come here and let me see if I can sort this ... and take no notice of Markie he was just being ... _a boy_ ... you're gonna look magic, well you will when I find a way of doing this, now just stand still for a minute"

Molly wanted to curse and throw sundry bits of wire, tinsel and pea stick across the room and then shout that she was giving up, she didn't care, and it wasn't like Millie wanted to do it and at this stage she'd be more than happy to say 'don't then' and mean it.

"What ARE you doing?"

"What does it look like? Oh shit, Charlie, is it raining? I hope you remembered to wipe the dog's feet? He'll be all muddy and I've just finished cleaning the bl ... floors"

"Yup, I remembered, so, what are you doing?"

"Making a halo of course, what does it look like? Gotta make it round with this tinsel wound round the edge and then put it on this stick so it sticks up above 'er head"

Molly grimaced and cursed under her breath as it slipped off the stick again and fell on the floor ... again.

"Do you want me to have a go?"

"'Feel free" She practically threw at him as she passed it over with a happy sigh "And ... and .. I've gotta make wings and stick bl ...blessed tinsel round them 'n all, and then Velcro the whole lot on this white nightie thing, 'n don't ask how I'm gonna do that"

"Amazon sounds good to me"

"Yeah tried that, it was me first stop, but they've only got these pink and bright green ones and these have to be white, and they're out of stock of course"

"Oh"

"Yeah ... Oh"

"I don't want to wear wings anyway Daddy, I want a crown like Marcus, I'd be a much better King than him" Millie gave Marcus a look that was full of daggers "But Miss Lvank said that only the boys can be Kings, that girls have to be Angels and things"

"Sexist"

"What does that mean Daddy?"

"Yeah, Daddy what does it mean? And careful ... don't forget Little Miss Women's rights will be in there like a rat up a drainpipe tomorrow telling Miss Whatsit whats what"

"Well, it means ... umm ... that we're paying too much for ... never mind, it means there aren't many ... ummm ... parts for boys in the Nativity so you have to, you know, let them have the ones there are ... you'll be a lovely Angel"

"There are lots of boys in it, shepherds and Kings and the innkeeper ... and I won't be a lovely Angel"

"Course you will and it's better than being ... dunno ...a donkey or a ... sheep innit?"

"No, Mummy, I'd like to be the donkey, that'd be cool"

"That head thing the donkey has to wear is all hot and sweaty, Simeon did it last year and he said it was stinky"

Charles and Molly both turned and smiled gratefully at Chloe, thanking her silently for her help. Neither of them recognised her intervention for what it actually was, an attempt to score some brownie points in operation pony.

"Who's being Mary this year Mills?"

"Rhiannon" Millie pinched her nostrils between her thumb and index finger giving her sister the recognised gesture for something or someone being a bad smell "Miss Lvank said it was her ... reward or something for being good, for doing as she's told all the time or something stupid"

"No danger of you winning that then is there Millie?"

"No, don't want to be Mary anyway, Daddy, it's boring"

Charles was laughing, he adored her feistiness, she reminded him so much of Molly when he'd first known her.

"Why would being Mary be boring?"

"She doesn't have anything to say, all she does is sit there all quiet with Joseph and pretend to have a baby which she sticks in this crib thing, and it's not even a real baby, not like Livvie, it's just a doll .. so Miss Lvank said it didn't matter when she dropped it on it's head at the rehearsal" Millie was now giggling evilly at the memory "She said she's got to be more careful when we do it in front of the Mummies and Daddies" Millie was her usual mercurial self and was suddenly all smiles as she climbed up on Charles' lap "Shall I tell you my words Daddy?"

"Lovely"

Millie went into full dramatic mode and recited her one line at the top of her voice with gestures which struck him as a faintly garbled pronouncement of the impending arrival of baby Jesus, but wisely decided to keep his mouth shut, trusting that the overpaid and sexist Miss Lvank would sort that out before the performance.

"Have you got any words Markie?"

"Yes, I'm got to say _Frankincense_ when it's my turn to put my present in front of the doll" He paused waiting for his sister who coveted his gold cardboard crown with the glass beads stuck on it to comment, but she didn't as his father smiled and nodded at him. When he'd been Marcus' age, he'd have died a thousand deaths at the thought of doing anything like that in front of other people..

"What is Frankincense Mummy?"

"No idea, ask your father" Molly caught the look on Charles' face "Or second thoughts Chloe can google it for you on my iPad"

"What's Chloe's star turn in this concert?"

"The big kids are playing carols on their recorders and singing so if you ask her nicely I'm sure she'll give you a bit of a preview, she's been practising Little Donkey all afternoon ever since she got out of school" Molly couldn't stop giggling at the expression of sheer horror that appeared on his face and went into whisper mode even though Chloe wasn't listening, she was concentrating her attention on the iPad "Could still do with a little bit more practise if you ask me, still they've got a few days yet"

"God help us"

-OG-

"Where are you?"

"Just parking the car, sorry, sorry, got a bit held up"

"Just hurry up and get your bum in here, Millie will never get over it if you're not here to see her do her bit"

He was hot and more than a bit sweaty as he sat down by her on a chair that was designed for a child's backside, but which was an aisle seat to allow for his long legs and which she'd reserved by sticking her bag and coat on it and by glaring and muttering _that one's taken_ at anyone who dared to try and sit on it or move it. Charles stood up again and hastily stripped off a couple of his layers before sitting down again gently steaming in a school hall which felt badly overheated to him after the bitter cold rain and sleet outside.

"Have you got your phone ready?"

"Nah, not allowed, they're doing some official one so we don't 'ave to"

"So we can pay for it you mean" He shook his head "Don't miss a trick do they?"

"There is that"

The lights in the main hall were switched off leaving only the lights on the stage when the five little girls walked out all dressed in white with tinsel edged wings and halos with Millie in the middle looking totally angelic which was somewhat belied her behaviour in the car earlier when she'd been trying her best to wind a very nervous Markie up to fever pitch. But she looked like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth as she looked over the hall that was chock full of parents and adoring grandparents who were all making a collective sigh of appreciation for how sweet they looked and Molly felt a pang of guilt that they hadn't invited Penny and Bill, as well as a whole load of regret that Belinda and Dave, and Nan as well, weren't there to share it with them.

Millie was word perfect as she delivered her line in the right place in a voice that rang out as clear as a bell, and then grinned happily at her mum and dad and Charles shook his head in delight, his face wreathed in a smile that was a mask of pride. He'd been relieved when he realised that the line made perfect sense when it was part of a five line sequence from a group of angels rather than a stand alone announcement. He sneaked a little sideways look at Molly and like him she was filled with a mixture of pride and a need to weep as she sniffed and started rooting around in her bag for a tissue.

"Okay?"

"Yeah, got something in me eye, that's all"

"Yup, me too"

Marcus hesitated before he stepped forward to central stage and delivered his word in a soft little voice while looking fixedly at the floor and Molly found herself saying it with him silently, willing him on as he took an agonised peep at all the people sitting in the hall and then hurried back to his place by the shepherds with a look of intense relief that is was over. She wished that he would look up at the audience, although she knew that for someone as shy as him that would take a bleeding miracle, but she wanted to give him a big grin and maybe a thumbs up. She knew what it had taken for him to do it, how he'd been dreading it, so was really proud of him, she sometimes felt she was the only person in the world who understood her little boy.

The recorders were every bit as excruciating as Charles had feared. He always maintained that recorders were included by the teachers in order to torture the parents who were then forced to sit and listen without sticking their fingers in their ears and that they were distinct disadvantages in being like him, a music lover. Although Chloe had inherited his ability to sing really beautifully in tune, unlike her mother, playing the recorder was something else, although to be fair he had to admit it was impossible to tell who was playing the screechy wrong notes. The teacher providing the piano accompaniment was doing her best to drown as much of it out as she could with the judicious use of the loud pedal.

And then a row of angels and shepherds and kings and the innkeeper with Mary and Joseph in the middle all formed themselves into a line and sat cross–legged at the front of the stage until the bigger children could form a line behind them. The first notes of the final carol rang out and they dimmed lights on the stage, a signal for the children at the front to stand up as they all began to sing.

" _Away in a manger, no crib for a bed_

 _The little Lord Jesus lay down his sweet head_

 _The stars in the bright sky looked down where he lay_

 _The little Lord Jesus asleep on the hay"_

Charles felt the tears prickle at the back of his eyes and had to swallow really hard as he moved to hold Molly's hand. He'd been to school concerts before, but this was the first Nativity featuring his children that he'd ever been to. He'd always been unable to attend when he'd been in the army, and he wasn't prepared for the emotion that he felt when he looked at them, the girls, Millie looking adorable with her halo all wonky and her missing teeth and Chloe getting more grown up and looking more like her mother every day. She was an absolute clone of Molly, and then there was Marcus who looked exactly like he had as a small boy, Marcus who was in fact him all over again. Molly tightened her fingers on his and he turned his head to smile down at her, knowing from the watery look in her green eyes that she was feeling exactly like he was, and felt this overwhelming surge of love for all of them.

"


	11. Chapter 11

_**A/N: Sorry, I know it's been a while for all sorts of reasons that I won't bore you with but this chapter takes it back (the Christmas special was just that, a one-off) to where they are dealing with the nightmare that is Sam, and with Molly's desperate need to get back to work and feel some self worth away from the same old, same old of her days – and about Charles' relationship with his assistant whose name has a habit of popping up in their conversations…**_

 _ **With apologies to those of you who don't want trouble in paradise, but have to warn you that it is starting to go a bit tits up ….**_

-OG-

"You lied to me, don't shake your head like that, you did, you fucking lied to me"

"Never, I've never lied to you"

Charles rolled his eyes and tried to get a degree of patience into his voice from somewhere, not altogether successfully it had to be said, but patience was the last thing he was feeling. He was tired and stone cold sober and had been on tenterhooks most of the evening whereas she was half way to pissed and had been spoiling for a fight all the way home in the car.

"And keep your voice down, stop shouting or you're going to wake the whole house up … so what am I supposed to have lied about anyway?"

"What do you reckon? And don't play the innocent with me, you bloody know what I'm talking about … or have you told me so many bleeding lies you can't remember them all? Oh no, I was forgetting, you don't tell lies do you? You're just fucking economical with the truth"

Molly sniffed loudly, she wanted to fling at him about how it wasn't the first time he'd apparently forgotten all about having a wife and a kid, but although she wasn't about to start crying exactly there were some drunken tears of rage that were threatening to make an appearance and which would definitely show up if she went down that route.

"I have no idea what you're talking about" Charles was very weary and it sounded in his voice "Come on let's talk about it in the morning"

"Sasha, that's what we're bleeding talking about, you and Sasha"

Molly had no intentions of waiting till morning, she'd had this burning need boiling up in her to have it out with him for hours and definitely wasn't about to just go tamely to bed, or let him either, she no longer cared how tired he was and she wasn't going to be able to sleep with all this shit flying around in her head.

"Oh _please,_ not this again" Charles ran a hand over his face "How many more times do I have to tell you there is no me and Sasha, now can we give it a rest and go to bed? I'm bloody tired"

"Not until you tell me the truth"

It had been a tricky couple of weeks, and as if all the crap with Sam wasn't enough, Molly had been gutted when she'd found that tracking down the sort of "Mary Poppins" that she'd got in mind to help her get back to work was not going to be the doddle she'd thought it was. She'd thought there'd be, well not exactly a queue maybe, but that there would be at least more than one cheerful, happy to help sort of person who could not only cook a bit but who liked kids and didn't mind shitty nappies or slightly nutty dogs and who needed a job. Someone who didn't mind a bit of muddle in the house either would be good, but it turned out they weren't that thick on the ground round their way. There'd been this sharp sucking in of breath and a lot of tutting and sucking of teeth at the agencies she'd been talking to, one had said straight out that it wasn't going to happen in her wildest bloody dreams, not for the sort of money they was offering and another said that the only person they had on their books who might possibly suit was a Spanish au pair who was younger than she'd been when Chloe was born. Apparently the girl didn't speak much English so was looking to learn and even without seeing her Molly just knew she'd have big tits and long legs and probably lots of hair with big brown eyes and well, it didn't matter what else, because it wasn't going to happen. Not that she'd given up looking for someone, not just yet, it was just maybe going to take a bit longer than she'd bargained for.

She'd also been a tiny bit pissed, well a whole lot pissed, that her old lot hadn't exactly fallen on her neck with cries of _welcome back_ either. There were new people in charge and she had to go for an interview, which she supposed she could sort of understand, a bit, although if she was honest she couldn't see why the fuck they couldn't just look her up on their records and then book her on a refresher. It wasn't that long since she'd left and she hadn't grown two heads or got a criminal record since then, but apparently those were the rules.

She'd sort of felt she had to agree to go with him to this bloody thing in Bristol, even though she hated charity bashes with a passion, he was expected to go, and he'd asked her really nocely, more than once, as if it really mattered to him, and of course her decision to go had had absolutely sod-all to do with him mentioning that bloody Sasha was going to be there. He actually didn't mind these things anymore, they were sort of part of the job and he'd got a lot better at smiling at people who were only there to polish their bloody halo's and to show off how generous they were in front of other people who were there to do the exact same thing. Or maybe to get their names in the papers.

"I bloody hate these things" She looked at him and pulled a face as they parked "You know, I'll probably show you up, don't you? Get pissed or something, and say all the wrong things and there won't even be any _real_ people there, I won't know a bloody soul except for you, and it don't matter what you say now you'll be too busy being polite to dickheads to talk to me, honestly it would be better if you go in there on your own and I'll wait for you in the pub"

"Nope … nice try, Dawsey, but sorry can't do that"

There were all sorts of reasons Charles wanted her with him this time, something that hadn't always happened in the past. She usually managed to come up with a creative shed-load of excuses why she couldn't possibly go with him, usually to do with baby-sitting issues but not this time, this time he really wanted her there but didn't want to share his reasons with her. She'd pretended to stick two fingers down her throat the first time he'd said about going but had eventually agreed with sulky bad grace,telling him it was going to cost him, and only digging her heels in to insist that his mum wasn't going to babysit, if she really had to go she was going to get Bashira to do it. There was no way Molly was going to have his mother in the house without one of them being there, the old bag was not going to get a chance to spend a whole evening going through the drawers to see what she could find, not even as a last resort.

"Come on, you know you'll enjoy it once we get in there"

"Nah, I won't … really I won't"

"And you wonder where Milly gets it from?"

"From you, obviously …. You know something … I might gonna need to have to sit on me hands, just in case I see something I like, might wanna bid for something"

"Don't you bloody dare"

"Depends how bored I am"

The last couple of weeks had been rough and Charles was already very tired after spending hours that afternoon patiently trying to get a very truculent Sam to open up and tell him what the fuck was going on with him, not for the first time by any means, but as usual without any success. Eventually he hadn't had much choice but to give up and save his sanity by negotiating some sort of settlement with the son he was beginning to think was a spoilt brat. He knew Molly loved Sam to bits, but that in her opinion what he really needed was a bloody good clip round the ear, something that was obviously not going to happen, even if in his darker moments, Charles agreed with her. Sam had finally grudgingly agreed that he would go back to school and do the bloody exams but only after Charles had threatened that there would be no driving lessons and definitely no help getting a car if he didn't. Even then he'd kept on muttering mutinously that it would be a waste of time and money because he wasn't going to pass anything so that Charles was beginning to suspect that the little so-and-so was going to make bloody sure of it, just so that he could say 'there, told you'. Cutting off his nose to spite his face, as Nan would call it.

Charles had agreed not to tell Lady Penelope, Molly's name for Rebecca, about the drugs as long as Sam kept his promise not to do anything so bloody stupid again, and as long as he kept out of any more bother, something Molly thought was a huge mistake. She was bloody sure it would only take the old dragon to get a tiny whiff of it, and the shit would really hit the fan, but with Sam's attitude rapidly rubbing off on Chloe, who thought the sun shone out of his arse, she couldn't help agreeing it would be good if he was back at school, if only to stop Chloe copying him like a little slave. The only thing left for Charles to do now was to persuade the school to let him darken their doors again, which probably wasn't going to be anything like as easy as it sounded.

And he'd had been up to his eyes with problems getting the right aid to the right people while keeping his promise to himself to stop getting quite so personally involved. Something else that was far from easy. There was a huge crisis in the Yemen, Myanmar was a fucking logistical nightmare and the massive problems in Kenya were still ongoing, so he'd had no choice but to start delegating to people he had very little faith in. In his opinion what some of them really needed was a swift kick up the arse from his six lace holes. If he'd still had any that was.

-OG-

She'd been hiding in the bogs almost since they'd got there trying to do something with her hair which was dead slippery because Livvie had wiped her hands in it earlier, hands that were covered in mashed carrot, so that she'd had to wash it and it really needed to be two day old if she was going to put it up and get it to stay up. She really was seriously thinking about getting it cut. Then she'd decided it would be a good idea to have a pee while she was there, although if she was being honest she'd have admitted it was just another avoiding tactic putting off the moment she'd have to go back out there and sit at a table with a stupid grin on her face and talk to a load of people she didn't know from Adam. And she'd have to do it without anyone to have a laugh with, or to be rude about the other people with.

.

She'd met Sasha. The girl had made a beeline for Charles as soon as they got in there but had just given her a quick glance as if she didn't matter, and she'd actually come as a surprise to Molly. In her mind's eye Sasha was a sort of sex goddess man-eater, tall with long legs up to her bum and long blonde hair, probably bleached, as well as plastic as Barbie, but bloody Sasha didn't look anything like that. She was really tiny for a start, even shorter than her, and as dainty as fuck as well as dead pretty, and she was probably what they call size bloody zero in her leather jeans and sleeveless top that made her look like she hadn't got any tits. But she'd got no flabby bits either so that Molly wouldn't mind betting there was no bleeding cellulite on her bum or thighs, not that she wanted to think about her bum, and she was young with a sugary sweet smile pasted on her lips when Charles introduced them. A smile that was about as genuine as Katie Price's tits and which made Molly want to go to the _kitchens and find a meat cleaver and take it to her head. She'd got the sort of bobbed hair that looked like someone trimmed it every ten minutes and it was the colour of a shiny conker or something, so that Molly wanted to change her mind about the meat cleaver and find a machete instead. Bloody Sasha made her feel old and overweight and dowdy, like an elephant who was badly in need of a few trips to the gym, and a haircut and to throw everything out of her wardrobe and start again..._

 _But much as she'd like to, she couldn't stay and hide in the bogs until it was time to go home. For a start Charles would be getting worried, he'd be wondering where the fuck she'd got to by now and anyway she was badly in need of_ a drink. A very large, very alcoholic drink.

As it turned out she didn't have to look very hard to find him. She'd expected to have to scan the room for his dark curly hair that was usually stood head and shoulders above the rest, especially in a room mostly full of fat little middle-aged blokes like this one, but there he was, standing in the corridor right outside the bogs with her, with bloody Sasha. He seemed oblivious to everything else but her as she giggled up at him and flicked her hair about and then put her hand on his arm as he bent his head towards her and listened to whatever it was she was whispering in his ear. Molly said nothing, just stood still and looked at him and waited for him to notice her standing there watching, and then she looked at the stupid expression on his face as he listened to her and when he smiled and said something back and she knew that if they hadn't already shagged, it was only a matter of time.

"Hello …."

"Molly … there you are.. I was wondering where you'd got to"

"Were you?"

He couldn't have looked more guilty if she'd caught him with his tongue down her throat, whereas Sasha just looked smug, making Molly wish that she'd got that machete handy to cut her hand off, the one that was still on his arm. And when she'd done that, she'd cut her head off before she started on him, although it wouldn't be his head or his hands that she'd be cutting off.

She was tempted to flounce off and then to piss off out of there, take the car and go home and leave him there, let him find his own way back, it would bloody serve him right. Except that'd mean she couldn't have the drink she so badly needed, she'd already had a glass of wine when they'd got there, but there was a very large Vodka and coke that was calling out to her. Anyway, he'd most likely get a bloody lift off of _her_ and she wasn't going to make it that easy for the pair of them. She'd spent the rest of the evening drinking steadily with a fixed grin on her face and watching him out of the corner of her eye, aware that he kept giving her little anxious looks as though he wasn't sure what the fuck she was going to do next, but he didn't appear to go anywhere near little 'Holly Hobbit' again, which Molly sourly told herself meant he was avoiding her because he'd been busted.

-OG-

"And you needn't think you're sleeping with me neither …. You can go in the spare room"

"You want me to sleep with Bashira? Come on Molls, don't be stupid"

"Don't call me stupid …" Shit, she'd forgotten all about Bashira being upstairs in bed in the spare room "I'll go in with her then"

"Lovely …..I'm sure she'll love that" He shook his head "You'd better have some water before you go to bed, you're going to feel horrible in the morning"

"Don't want any water … there's wine in the fridge, I'm gonna 'ave that"

"Your choice of course, although I have to say it's probably not one of your better ideas, but still …" He shrugged. knowing there was no point in arguing with her "Just don't make a noise when you come up … it's really late" He marched to the kitchen door "You know, I really can't believe you think I'd do something like that"

"Saw you, didn't I?" But she was talking to herself, he'd gone out of the kitchen and quietly closed the door behind him leaving her sitting on her own with her skin itching with irritation.


	12. Chapter 12

_**A/N: Sorry to those who were upset at the thought our hero might have feet of clay, and probably will hate that things may get worse before they get better – thank you for your reviews they mean the world to me (even the ones where you're a bit cross) the next chapter will see CJ coming clean ... and the fallout ... and what is wrong with Sam.**_

-OG-

What she was going to do was have wine, a lot of it, probably keep drinking till she was pissed enough to forget the whole evening and if he and his guilty conscience got bothered about her not coming up to bed, well, that was his problem. Sooner or later he was going to have to face her and tell her what the fuck had been going on, he couldn't just keep running away.

She'd got no idea how long the bottle of wine had been there and open but it passed the Dawes sniff test so it'd be okay, probably, all she hoped was that it wouldn't give her food poisoning or nothing, she didn't even know if wine could do that. A large swig was enough to tell her it was a racing certainty. She had to spit it out, couldn't even swallow it was so totally minging, it was unbelievably bloody awful even for a supermarket special that had been standing open too long, undrinkable unless you were already very, very slaughtered. She used her sleeve to wipe the wine splatters off the table and then tipped the rest down the sink, even when she'd been young enough to drink whatever there was as long as it had alcohol in it, she couldn't have swallowed that, it tasted like vinegar that had gone off. She'd have to go and see what else she could find lurking in the cupboard, there had to be something hiding there, one of those dodgy bottles of liqueur that someone had given them as a present when they got back from their holidays, the ones she kept meaning to chuck out but hadn't got round to it. Obviously she must of known they'd come in handy one day.

The anger that had been bubbling up inside was still there, not going away or getting any better, it was the same as it had ever since she'd seen that hand on his arm and that look on his face so she needed something to take the edge off, something to get rid of the awful feeling of not wanting to believe her own two eyes. How the fuckety fuck had it ended up with this, with her sitting on her own wanting to be sick? Even though she was most likely imagining the feeling sick bit, her stomach was tied up in a knot and she felt like she could be sick in her mouth every time she thought about what she'd seen.

It was probably hunger, it was hard to tell with her stomach feeling wrong the way it did, but she hadn't actually eaten anything since leftovers from the kids' tea, hadn't wanted to touch any of her dinner at all. It had been a fucking nightmare having to sit there next to him and pretend everything was normal, having to behave like a grown-up and smile sweetly at the waiter, then say thanks for the plate of chicken he'd put in front of her. She'd pushed the food round the plate for ages trying hard to look as if she was eating it when what she really wanted to do was pick it up and dump the congealed chicken on his head. If she'd put even a tiny bit of it anywhere near her mouth it would of choked her, so after about a week of pretending to play nicely with a stupid grin on her face, she'd put her knife and fork down tidily, and gone back to drinking Vodka instead. Then, in spite of Charles' raised eyebrows and him _looking_ sideways down his nose,or maybe because of it, she'd asked the waiter to get her another double.

But behaving badly because you're bleeding angry with someone doesn't work when they've pissed off and you're sitting there on your own muttering out loud to an empty room. And not even the bloody dog wanted to know. Useless fucking animal just opened his eyes and give her a look as if he didn't know quite what the fuck she was up to disturbing his kip at that time of night, and had then wagged his tail and gone back to sleep, which made her eyes fill up with tears. Even Patches didn't love her, and she was the one fed him and took him for walks and took him to the vet when he wasn't well and cleaned up after him when he peed in the house, or worse, no other bugger, just her. Ungrateful little sod, she had a good mind to take him back to the rescue people.

For the first time in a long time she would have killed to still have the sort of mates she used to have when she was in the army and had a life, friends she could ring no matter how pissed she was or what time it was, like Jackie or even Fingers, but she'd lost touch with them so that now all she'd got were school gate mums who didn't count. It wasn't like she'd ever want to ring any of them, and ringing the family at this time of night was a non-starter, they'd immediately think there was a disaster of some sort. So there was no-one she could tell how fucking miserable she was and how it had all gone to shit and how angry she was with him because of him being a complete knob. Anyhow the family would say it couldn't be his fault that she was upset, not with him being bleeding perfect the way he was, and if she opened her mouth and told them about him and Sasha it would never be the same again. Nan would fucking _kill_ him with her bare hands for a start. So she couldn't tell them, because then they'd know, and she wasn't sure if she was ready for that.

She was lonely.

-OG-

There was a moment between being fast asleep and being wide awake when everything felt _normal_ , when there was nothing wrong because nothing had happened, and then this sinking feeling of dread arrived in the pit of her stomach and she wanted to bury her head under the pillow and go back to sleep. He was supposed to love her, that's what he said, over and over, but he couldn't, could he? Not when he was messing with some girl half his bloody age. The thought had never even crossed her mind till then that he might want to be with Sasha and not her, that maybe he didn't love her anymore, or not enough anyway.

"I'm going for a run"

She didn't need to look in the mirror to know she looked rubbish, her eyes were gritty and swollen and sore and like she'd been crying half the night, which she hadn't, she hadn't actually been crying at all. But he didn't know that because he'd been fast asleep when she'd come up to bed, hadn't been pretending so as to avoid a row, but actually properly fast asleep. She'd clung to her side of the bed to try and make sure she didn't touch him not even by accident and had been convinced she'd be lying there all night playing it over and over in a loop in her head, wide awake while she listened to him snore, but she'd dropped off almost immediately, apparently. And now that she'd woken up, she had the bloody hangover from hell, which was ridiculous when she hadn't had hardly anything to drink Not like the old days when she could of drunk the whole lot of them under the table before feeling like she was going to die. She must have got allergic or something.

Lying flat in bed and keeping her head still she watched him get his running gear on and wished he'd hurry up and go. Her alcohol poisoned skin was clammy and getting clammier by the second as she fought the urge to puke, but she was determined it was not going to happen while he was still there. Eventually she managed to get herself upright and lean against the headboard and did her best to pull herself together enough to hide how shit she felt. She wished she could think of something clever to say, but physically surviving was enough of a challenge without trying to do anything else.

In the end he left without coming over to the bed or kissing her goodbye or anything, didn't give her a chance to say anything, which was just as well, because saying something was going to make it _real_ and then she'd end up falling to bits. What she wanted was to be wrong, to have made a mistake, but she wasn't and she hadn't. She was right about what she'd seen, and couldn't just pretend she hadn't seen it and hope it would all go away.

-OG-

"You feeling better?"

"Nah ... not really, feel a bit shit" She stared at the kitchen table top and started picking at a sticky stain with her index finger "Think I might be allergic to something actually"

She saw him pull a face even though he had his back turned and was at the sink filling a glass with cold water.

She'd been on the point of asking him whether he was okay, not that she really cared, but as a gesture, of sorts, but she wasn't going to now he'd pulled a face like that. Anyway he looked like he always did when he'd been out for a run, nothing seemed to be wrong with him, his cheeks were all flushed and healthy looking and his eyes were same as always, he looked _fine,_ like he hadn't got a worry in the world. Even if he had been running pretty hard judging from the way his hair and 't' shirt were dripping with sweat, and that was something he did when he was a bit upset or worried, a legacy from his days in the army.

"The thing about that type of allergy is the more you drink the more allergic you get"

He picked up the empty wine bottle and made a point of shaking it about before chucking it in the re-cycling so that there was no mistake about what he was _implying_ , and then raised his eyebrows in a 'no wonder you feel shit if you drank all that' sort of way that made her blood boil. How bloody dare he? She didn't have to answer to him for how much she drank, and smug bugger wasn't always right either, she hadn't actually drunk any of it at all, had poured it away down the sink. But she wasn't going to say anything, he could think whatever it was he wanted and even if she had drunk it all, every last drop, it was his pissing fault.

"I never drank any of it... so you're wrong, it wasn't that"

Shit, she hadn't been going to say anything, but then there had been this overwhelming urge to defend herself and it had got the better of her, he'd pissed her off big time jumping to conclusions like that, who did he think he was, her bloody dad? Well, not the best analogy she could have come up with, her dad wouldn't care how much she sank as long as it wasn't his.

"Really?" He couldn't have sounded more sceptical if he'd tried "I'm going for a shower"

"Yeah ... really ... that's what I said and that's what I meant, I poured it down the sink"

He chucked his mobile on the side, which as far as Molly was concerned meant he'd probably been talking to Sasha while he'd been out running, so she carefully didn't look at it and wondered what the chances were of him leaving it there while he was in the shower so that she could have a snoop. But instead of going off for a shower he pulled the bottom of his shirt up and dried the sweat from his face, then turned to look at her as she sipped a cup of tea the colour of creosote and avoided meeting his eyes. She was absolutely determined to look as though she didn't give a bloody shit, and even more determined that whatever else happened she was not going to cry, she was not going to turn herself into a _victim._

"How long is this going to go on for? Roughly?"

Molly shrugged. She was tempted to ask the sarcastic sod what he was talking about, but decided that would make it look as though she wasn't being snotty on purpose, which she most definitely was. He didn't seem to get it that he was the one in the wrong, not her, that none of this was her fault so she'd got nothing to say. The kids being in the sitting room watching tele with Bashira meant she couldn't swear and throw things at his head either.

"You know, an explanation of what I've done wrong would be helpful"

He leaned back against the sink with a tumbler of water in his hands and swilled it round in the glass as he tried to look nonchalantly interested, and used that patient Captain James tone of sweet reasonable that she hadn't heard for years, the one that always made her want to hit him.

"We can't go on like this can we?"

"Probably not"

"Come on Dawsey, is that all you've got to say?"

"What do you want me to say?"

She shrugged and narrowed her eyes as she took a quick peep at him, and then looked down and concentrated on her friend the sticky patch on the table. She badly wanted to stamp her foot and yell at him not to call her Dawsey, that was his name for her when he was being loving and it didn't mean anything anymore, like saying 'ditto' and she wanted to ask if he said 'ditto' to her, to Sasha, and whether he had a pet name for her, not that she really wanted to know any of that except for in a sticking your tongue in a sore place sort of way. She was tired, exhausted by the whole bloody thing and there was this little man beating a drum in her head.

The funny thing about her husband was the longer they were together the less handsome he seemed so she often forgot how sort of perfectly _arranged_ he was, because to her he was just Charles, but now suddenly she saw him like, well like she used to, when seeing him smile at her had made her feel like she'd won the lottery. She'd been worried about him and Sasha for ages, had known in her heart of hearts what was going on, she should do, that had been her once upon a time so she knew just what it was like to get a crush on someone like him, especially when they looked the way he did. How easy it happened when you were with them day in, day out, when you were always working together sorting stuff and being there, sharing little jokes and that, and Sasha was a really pretty girl, probably a nice girl as well, and it didn't matter he was so much older, hadn't made any difference to her, had it?

"Are you gonna go?"

"Well I was going for a shower"

"You know what I mean"

"No, I don't, I haven't got the faintest fucking idea what you're talking about, so come on, spit it out"

"Just thought you might gonna want to, you know, move out or something"

"WHAT? What the fuck ...?" He stopped for a moment and looked at her with a horrified expression on his face "Hang on, are you saying that's what you want?"

She shrugged again, and tried to ignore the little voice in her head that was screaming at her to say no, of course that wasn't what she wanted, but she couldn't seem to say it for some reason. She hadn't really thought about them splitting up before, not seriously, because she couldn't imagine being without him. They'd been together for nearly ten years and she'd been happy, mostly, had really thought that he was happy as well, but everything had changed recently, even before the previous night. He'd been a bit unhappy with his job, she'd known that, and that he missed the army, missed his mates and the lads and he missed being in control, hated not knowing exactly what he was doing and he was a bit out of his depth with Sam as well, well they both were. And she hadn't been doing much to help, she was bored shitless most of the time and had really wanted, no, had really needed something to make her feel like Molly again.

And he'd started to mention this girl ... a lot. Her name had seemed to crop up all the time and then she'd taken to calling him when he was at home.

"Tell me the truth Charles ... 'ave you slept with her?"

"WHAT? No ... no, of course not ... Why would you even think something like that?"

He walked over to where she was still busily picking away at the sticky stain and carefully avoiding looking at him. He rapped his knuckles lightly on the top of her head so that she jerked away from his hand.

"What is going on in that crazy little head of yours? ... I've told you, there's nothing going on between me and well, between me and anyone, _nothing_ , okay, _nothing,_ never has been, never will be, why won't you believe me? What on earth makes you think I would lie about something like that?"

"Don't talk to me like I'm one of the kids ... I'm not crazy ... I'm just sayin', that's what it looked like to me" Molly lifted her eyes and met his gaze, then quickly averted them and looked away again.

"What do you mean, it looked like that? Looked like what? What are you talking about?"

"You know what I'm talking about ... I saw you"

"You saw me? ... right ... you saw me, what?"

"I saw you ... you and her, I saw her put her hand on you and I saw the way you looked at her"

-OG-


	13. Chapter 13

_**A/N: Thank you for carrying on supporting me, and for reading and reviewing, even if you wanted to slap me.**_

-OG-

He stood looking at the floor while she waited for him to say something, bloody _anything._ But he didn't for ages, just stood there as if he was thinking about what to say as she had this massive urge to just go over to where he was and pummel him, scream at him and demand that he just stop trying to come up with the best story and tell her the truth.

"I'm sorry ... I really don't know what else there is I can say ... but ...I am sorry, I never intended anything like this to happen"

"Oh shit, he has"

The full horror of the words hit her in the brain like a sledgehammer as her heart started to pound so loud she was sure he must be able to hear it.

"Sorry? SORRY? That's it? Fuck ... Charles, just ... fuck ... fuck ..." Molly could hear that tears were gathering in her throat and that her voice sounded thick with them, but she was buggered if she was going to cry "You never meant it? Oh good, well that's alright then innit? Held a gun to your 'ead did she?" She could hear him trying to say something, to interrupt without yelling but she was far too wound up to just shut up and let him start making excuses "Shit, Charles, how could you?" The volume of her voice was rising dramatically so that she had to pause and take a deep breath and try to calm down a bit because yelling would bring the kids in to see what was going on "You told me I was worrying 'bout nothing, that's what you said, innit? But I was right all along ... I should never have believed you ... "

The adrenaline that had made her heart pound had drained every bit of moisture from her mouth so it was like the Gobi desert, so it was hard to swallow and her hands were shaking where they were holding onto her empty mug. The realisation had hit her that what she'd thought was true, was just that, true, but that up till that moment, in spite of everything, she hadn't really believed it. There'd always been this bit of her brain telling her she was over-reacting, that he _wouldn't_ do that to her, not Charles, but ... he had. And now her legs were shaking so badly that her knees were knocking like castanets under the table and she couldn't seem to stop them, it was like being in the middle of one of those fucking nightmares where it doesn't matter how hard you try you can't wake up.

"Are you going to let me say something now? NO. NO. and NO ... no,no,no, you've got it all wrong, that's not it at all, I haven't, of course I haven't, and I would have thought that you would have known that Molly, but I don't know what else to say, what I can say that you will make you see that I'm telling ythe truth ... fuck I don't even remember looking at her ... not the way you think"

"Well you did... ... .. and I'm not stupid, I know what I saw ... and I want the truth, not some story you think I'll believe" She stopped and took another deep breath "I just wanna know ... what it is you're sorry for if you 'aven't done anything?"

" I haven't _done_ anything ... it's as I said, I haven't had anything to do with her the way you think I have ... I promise ... I ... .. what I was trying to say was that I'm sorry about the way you feel and I'm sorry for not listening when you tried to tell me ... "

He stopped talking for a moment and looked down at the floor between his feet, then rubbed the back of his neck "I don't think you'll believe me if I try and tell you how sorry I am, but that doesn't mean it's not true ... I know I fucked up ... again ... and that I didn't immediately tell you that I make you right about Sasha .. the way she is, I know you're right" He put his head back and gave a quick snort of laughter "I didn't think it was that ... mattered as much as it obviously does ... it's not funny, is it? It's not a joke and I should have done more to ... stamp on it" He pulled a contrite face and looked up at Molly "I'm sorry"

"Don't pull that face ... it don't work ... so, why didn't you then?"

"It's not the army, sadly, I can't just tell her to stop being a prat and put her on a charge, only wish I could, but there are rules about that sort of thing" He broke off and thought for a second before rubbing the back of his neck again "Can't get rid of her, believe me I would if I could, and I can't make her someone else's problem either, I can't give her a transfer unless she agrees to one, and she's bloody good at her job, hasn't done anything to get herself fired ... not even to get a written warning" He paused "Don't imagine DEC will be too happy if they get sued because I broke the rules, probably not the best career move I could make" He wiped his hand over his face "I don't know now what I was thinking of, but I thought if we went together last night, if you were with me, then she'd ... see you with me ... see us together... and it'd tell her she's fucking wasting her bloody time ... Jesus, it never even occurred to me the plan could come apart... stupid move on my part"

"Well, why didn't you just tell me? And why did you say you didn't know what I was talking 'bout when I said?"

"I'm sorry ... I should have ... I know that ... "

"Yeah .. you do now ... and yeah you should of told me"

She didn't mean to sound quite so snarky and suspicious, but could hear from her tone of voice that that was exactly how she sounded, she sounded as though she didn't believe him and she thought she probably did, but couldn't help the lingering feeling that he wasn't telling her everything. It still felt like he was hiding something, but there was a danger it could be something she really didn't want to hear, and she'd been desperate to be wrong, to have made a mistake, and now she'd got what she wanted, so why the fuck was she thinking of risking it starting up all over again? She looked at him and narrowed her eyes, wanting desperately to believe that the way he was looking at her with those brown eyes of his filled with worried affection meant he was genuinely sorry. Someone had once said that those eyes were windows into his soul so that she'd almost wet herself laughing and had said that in that case his soul must be dead bleeding sexy judging by the rest of him and he'd blushed, then told them both to piss off.

Charles thought that on the whole it wouldn't be the best idea he'd ever had to tell Molly that blatant hero worship from a pretty girl who was almost exactly half his age and who had a huge and very obvious crush had been a welcome salve to his battered and bruised ego. And he hadn't even given it a lot of thought, had just laughed, until the afternoon he'd got back from Kenya and had been forced to recognise that even though he simply wasn't interested in that sort of relationship with her, his failure to deal with it put him in real danger of losing the things he loved most. That unless he sorted it out and quickly, he was in danger of wrecking what he'd got and of spending the rest of his life walking into rooms that didn't have Molly in them, and that didn't bear thinking about. He wished more than anything now that he hadn't let it to go on for as long as he had and that he hadn't buried his head in the sand and told himself it didn't mean anything and that if he ignored it, it would sort itself out. But he had to take steps to sort it out and quickly, even if that was going to be anything but easy. He had a feeling it was not going to be his finest hour.

"From when we got there she was all over you ... like ... dunno ... like bloody mildew or something and she saw me looking ... and put her hand on you, made sure I saw ... I wanted to punch her lights out for her"

Molly took a deep breath and tried to sound as if she was just telling him, almost as if she thought it was funny, but there were _things t_ hat rankled so badly it was impossible to just ignore them and pretend they hadn't happened, or that they hadn't upset her, were still upsetting her in facr.

"I'm sorry..."

"Yeah, I know, you said ... I think I might gonna 'ave to 'ave a little word with her, tell her to keep her hands to herself"

"Shit, what am I supposed to say to that?" He chuckled, not sure whether she was seriously thinking of doing anything like that "Nice suggestion, but apart from anything else I'm not sure I trust a trained killer like you, I don't want to have to visit you in prison for the next twenty years"

"Yeah, well, there is that" Molly shrugged and tried to pretend she was thinking about it "What makes you think I care enough to do more than smack her a bit? Might not even do that, might decide to shake her hand and tell her she's welcome to you"

"Nope, don't believe that ... but there is nothing for you to be jealous about" He stopped and smiled "You know, I was very jealous once about something and the smartest person I've ever met said she was glad because it showed how I felt about her, not her exact words of course, it was a long time ago now, but that's what she meant and then she told me she was fond of me"

"Do I know her?"

"Yup ... trouble is she can be a bit stupid sometimes as well, doesn't always believe that she's the only person I care about, the only one I want to see when I close my eyes at night and when I wake up in the morning, and that's the same now as it was when I first found her"

"Sloppy bugger ... Oi, who you callin' stupid? Thought you just said I was smart?"

"Well you're ..."

"Mummy ... I'm hungry, can I have something to eat?"

Millie charged through the kitchen door like a whirlwind before Charles could finish what he was saying, and as usual she was shouting at the top of her voice as if she thought everyone was deaf before she stopped abruptly when she sensed an atmosphere. She looked suspiciously from one parent to the other.

"What are you talking about?"

"Nothin' ... and what happened to 'please' ... I'll make you a cheese sandwich"

"No... I'm not hungry for a sangwich 'n I don't like cheese ... it tastes like sick"

"Since when? And if you're not hungry for a ..."

"Here ... catch... now go away"

Charles opened the cupboard before Molly could finish what she was saying and grabbed a packet of Jaffa Cakes which he threw to Millie who was still glaring at her mother with an outraged expression at the offer of a cheese sandwich, she'd been after a packet of crisps. Her expression immediately changed to a sunny grin of triumph as she backed out of the room as fast as she could, clutching her prize and rushing to get away before her mum could intervene or her dad could get his mind changed for him.

"Thank you Daddy" She beamed at him over her shoulder as she went, her voice all sweetness and light "You're lovely Daddy" Her words and the tone of her voice as well as the look she shot in Molly's direction made it crystal clear that in her opinion her father was a star while her mother, who thought cheese sandwiches were preferable to crisps, was definitely not.

"Thank you Millie" Charles put his head back and roared with laughter, he adored the way Millie was without guile "Nothing like a bit of cupboard love"

"Bleeding soft touch ... hey, better tell her to share them else there's gonna be a war"

But the warning came just slightly too late as the loud chorus of "That's not fair" and "Stop it" and "I hate you" started to emanate from the sitting room mixed with the soft, plaintive tone of Bashira trying to act as referee and Millie as she crowed smugly that they were hers, that Daddy had given her them and they should go and get their own.

"God help us ... Millie ... Millicent James" He raised his voice to Captain Stern "I'm surprised at you, now share them ... I don't want to have to come in there and do it for you, but I'm telling you young lady that if I have to, you won't like it one little bit because you won't be getting any"

"Yes Sir, no Sir, nice one Boss, just a shame you never spelt it out for her before you had to threaten to put her on a charge" Molly giggled at the stunned silence from sitting room.

"Worked though didn't it?" He tilted his head and listened to the relative peace and then turned his most appealing gaze on her "What I want to say is ... will you PLEASE come here and give me a hug, I know I'm all sweaty and disgusting ... but ..." He looked down at the dark patches on his shirt and peeled it away from where it was sticking and then caught his bottom lip in his teeth as he looked over at her and smiled.

"Yeah, you stink" Molly got up and moved towards him "But then my mouth is like an Afghan shitter, so I've more than likely got dragon breath ..."

"Lovely ... that'll be the allergy" He folded his arms round her and pulled her against him until her head was resting on his chest and she could hear the steady thump of his heart. As he lightly kissed the top of her head a single hot tear of relief spilled out of one eye and rolled down her cheek and she turned her head slightly to wipe it off on his damp shirt.

"Did you just wipe your nose on my shirt?" She didn't lift her head to look up at him, she didn't have to, she could hear from the tone of his voicethat he was smirking.

"Ummmm" She nodded "Yeah, sorry"

"No, it's me should be sorry I said that about the wine ... half a bottle of Vodka isn't nearly enough to give you a hangover is it, so you're right, it must be an allergy" Molly could feel a laugh rumbling in his chest.

"Wasn't half a bottle ... might of been that coconutty rum stuff Bella give us – from where she went to ... wherever it was she went"

"Shit, please tell me you didn't drink that? That's been there forever ... I thought you were going to throw it out"

"It was quite nice actually ... bit sweet but not bad... bit on the strong side"

"I'm surprised you can stand on your own two feet"

"It was close..."

He pushed his hands into her hair bunching it in his fingers and pulled her face up to touch her lips with his, then tightened his hold on her hair to keep her there while he kissed her with far more urgency. But she didn't need him to hold her where she was so that he could kiss her, she had no intention of going anywhere as she kissed him back with the same degree of enthusiasm. She just needed to show him it was over and that she didn't want to fight anymore. His kisses were getting harder as he slid his hand down and cupped her bum, and then pulled her hard against him, so that she pushed her leg in between his which made him open his mouth hungrily over hers.

"Is this make-up sex?"

"Could very well be … let's go to bed"

There was no secret about how much he wanted to, she could feel it, but then he wasn't the only one, she wanted nothing more than to hold him and hear him whisper against her neck the way he did, about the way he felt, about the way she made him feel and how much he loved her, and forget all about everything else. But they couldn't just up and go to bed, not with the children and Bashira and Livvie was going to wake up any second and Sam was around somewhere.

"What about the kids? Might gonna need to 'ave to wait till later on"

"I'm not sensing a whole lot of enthusiasm here, Dawsey" He smirked and then laughed aloud "Hey, we could get Bashira to take them out for a walk or something, fresh air is good" He started nibbling her neck and lifted her hair so that he could find the sensitive spot behind her ear as she shook her head and giggled "Or we can put them on Gumtree, then go upstairs and make some new ones" Charles lifted his head "I like them when they're little, they don't answer back"

"Not on your life … told you, nah, no more"

"I think that's a real shame"

"Nah it's not … and don't think you're gonna get round me neither … It's not gonna 'appen"

"I know, still think it's a shame though"

"Sod off"

-OG-

"Where's Dad?"

"Taken Bashira back, she's got something to do and he's taken the kids with him"

Molly lifted her head from where she was resting it on the hard table top and winced as Livvie, who was sitting on the floor, crashed two saucepan lids together. Molly had tried to take them away because her head was still killing her but Livvie's scream of outrage had gone straight through her like a knife, so she was putting up with the racket as the lesser of two evils. She was afraid that if she went and sat on a comfy chair she'd fall asleep and she couldn't, not with Livvie, and anyway she'd feel even more horrible when she had to wake up.

"Put the kettle on and come and keep me company for a bit, it's been a bloody age since we had a cuppa" Molly saw him hesitate, he was obviously reluctant if he was going to be in for another lecture "I mean, I'd tell you to get one of your dad's beers, but he's drunk them all and there's no wine"

She looked at Sam as he took off his glasses and rubbed at his eyes and thought how much like his dad he looked without them. He was tall and slim like him with the same slim hips and beautiful dark hair and eyes and he was another one with eyelashes to die for, which she didn't normally notice behind his glasses. He was going to start breaking hearts soon, well he would if he was ever allowed out of the prison he was in so that he could meet girls.

"There's some coconut stuff in there but it's a bit fierce so if I give you any of that your Gran will have me arrested"

Sam laughed and nodded as he put mugs of tea on the table and plonked himself down. He lounged back and folded his arms behind his head, then stretched his long legs out in front of him, which made him look even more like a young version of Charles.

"You alright mate?"

"Suppose so"

Livvie had got bored with the noise she was making and had started to whinge so Molly picked her up and put her in her high chair, then got a handful of chocolate buttons and broke them into bits, spreading them on the tray for Livvie to pick up. She knew the sugar nazis would have a bleeding fit, but didn't actually care tghat much, the peaceful few minutes was worth it.

"I know you hate it there Sammie, sorry Sam, but it won't be for long, will it? And then you can do … whatever" Sam put his glasses back on and looked at her, then slowly shook his head from side to side in a way that suggested she didn't know what she was talking about.

"You've got no idea"

"Nah … okay … well, nah … but I don't get it, Sam, why do you hate it so much, I mean, why is this one more shit than the others?"

"It's not …. You really have got no idea have you? None of you, you, Dad, Gran, even Mum, well, especially Mum, have got a clue what it's like to be me"

-OG-


	14. Chapter 14

_**A/N: As promised this is about Sam ...**_

-OG-

Sam was staring into space and sipping tea without looking at her and he reminded her of her when she'd look anywhere but at his dad when he was waiting for her to say something and she wasn't sure what.

"I hated them, I hated every single one of the schools I was sent to when no-one knew what else to do with me"

"Nah, Sam it wasn't ..."

But he wasn't interested in what she had to say, Molly had the feeling he wasn't even listening, all he was interested in was the voice in his head that was set on telling her how he saw it.

"When my dad left my mum, he didn't just leave her did he? No, he left me as well, he didn't want me but she didn't either, so I was sent off to Bath till I was old enough and then to boarding school, but you know something Molly? No-one ever asked me what I wanted"

"Sammie, I don't think that's quite the way it ... you were just a little kid, and of course your dad wanted you ... and he didn't leave your mum, well, not like that, they both decided ... and ... he was in the bloody army, wasn't he? He couldn't just pick you up and stick you in his Bergen and take you with him, could he? It was never he didn't want you, Sammie, he's always wanted you, and the reason you was sent off like that is that your mum and dad both think them schools are the nuts, no other reason"

She could see from the look on his face that he wasn't desperately impressed with the explanation she'd just dished up, but then she couldn't say she blamed him, she wasn't that impressed with it herself. But it was really difficult for her to defend something she didn't believe in, especially when she hadn't had time to think about it and rehearse something and when she had a banging head and most of all when she thought there was a little grain of truth in what he'd said. In her opinion there had been a bit of parking him, but she couldn't say that, not to him. Charles had told her it was just she didn't understand the whole boarding school thing, but that hadn't worried her because there was no bleeding way any kid of hers was going so it didn't matter. He'd raised his eyebrows and rolled his tongue round his mouth a bit when she'd put her foot down about it, and had then done a lot of that neck tugging thing of his, before he admitted to her that it was probably just as well seeing they'd have to sell the house or take out another mortgage to pay for it.

"If those schools are so great, how come Chloe and Marcus haven't gone, both of them are older than I was when I went?"

Shit, she wasn't sure how to tell him it would be over her dead body they'd be going anywhere near a boarding school, but she didn't want to say anything that would sound as if she was having a pop at Rebecca, laying all the blame on her, even if it was all her bloody fault. Anyway, to be fair Charles was a bit responsible as well, but Rebecca had always been the one who wouldn't hear of anything else.

"I never went to one of them, but then I never really went to any other sort of school either" She gave a short laugh hoping he'd join in and laugh with her and that they could lighten up a bit, but he didn't, he just carried on looking at her expectantly and waited for her to go on "I s'pose what it is ... is ... I don't really get it, all that, and ... well, to tell the truth I don't want them to go, so it's down to me they're not going"

"Lucky them"

Fuck, she wished now she'd told him it was that they couldn't afford it, but she wasn't the best liar ever and he would have known she wasn't telling the exact truth, not that it was a total lie because they hadn't got the money, but that wasn't the main reason the others weren't going, she was. She just wished she'd found a better way of explaining it. She hadn't been involved in the decision to send him, he'd been so little when they'd first sent him off, and there was nothing she could say or do about it now. And anyhow, it probably wouldn't have made that much difference if she had tried to interfere, he wasn't hers so she'd never really had much say in it, well, none at all really.

"I don't think you know how it feels to never really belong anywhere ..."

"I do actually ..."

"Well that's how I felt, I didn't belong at school, or in Bath and definitely not with my Mum, she could never wait to see the back of me"

Sam shook his head and she knew that even though he hadn't said about her and Charles, they were on his shit list as well. He made a little snorting sound which he might have intended as a laugh, but which didn't come out that way.

"I spent a lot of time pretending everything was fine, because that's what you do when you're there, there's no room for anything else ... but the only time I remember being really happy was in Yorkshire with you and Dad ... but that didn't last did it? I wasn't allowed to stay, the others could, they could come home and be in a bad mood or be on their own if they felt like it or if they'd had a shit day at school, and you'd give them a hug, and tell them it didn't matter and shout at them sometimes" Molly grimaced, knowing that that much was true if nothing else was "But I was sent away again, only allowed back at weekends .. different school but same old routine..."

It was a good job Rebecca wasn't there because Molly would have picked up the nearest blunt instrument and slapped her round the head with it, but then Charles hadn't really done enough either. Even if he'd had his doubts, and she knew he had, he hadn't tried that hard to keep Sam home with them, although Rebecca would never have taken no for an answer without a fight, they should have stood up to her.

"I'm sorry, Sam, I, I dunno ... no-one meant ... didn't mean for you to feel ... like that"

She looked at the closed expression on his face and was filled with an awful feeling she was going to bawl her eyes out any second, which wasn't going to help anything, none of this was the exact way she remembered it, but she wasn't about to challenge him.

"But you had your friends at school, yeah? It weren't all bad was it?"

"No, it wasn't all bad, and of course I had friends, but it's difficult when you keep moving around all the time ... and there's lots of things... so it's hard, especially when you're always the new kid"

"What you trying to say 'ere, Sam? Was it ... you telling me you was bullied?" She was beginning to panic inside that that was what he was trying to say, which would explain a hell of a lot, although she couldn't remember him ever saying anything about anything like that and she wouldn't have forgotten if he had. She could remember how bloody angry she and Charles had been when Chloe had been a target.

"No, not the way you mean ... it's just that sometimes ... sometimes people make things up, they say things that are not even true and if you're new and haven't got a lot of friends around, it's hard, and they keep on and you have to try and pretend you don't care ... but you can never get away from it, or get away from them"

Sam's face flushed a fiery red with embarrassment as he turned away and watched Livvie busily licking the last tiny fragments of chocolate off the highchair tray and then looked down to where Patches was nudging at him wanting to be stroked. He only looked back at Molly when the blush had faded from his face slightly, although his neck was still red and blotchy.

"Look ... I know I'm not your mum, Sam" She thought she'd say it before he did, she'd heard it so many times recently that it had lost some of the power it used to have to hurt her "But you can tell me you know, I'm good at listening" She paused "And I do know what it's like to be bullied, used to 'appen to me a lot when I did go to school, which wasn't very often to be fair, but if there's ever anything you ..."

"There's nothing to tell"

She knew just from looking at him that it was a lie, it was written all over him, but she had absolutely no clue what he was lying about except that he might have been bullied and didn't want to tell her. Maybe because he thought it made him look like a kid or something and that he was a grown-up who should be able to deal with it on his own, but whatever it was it was obvious it was still bothering him. But there was no way she was going to try and force it out of him, apart from anything else she was pretty bloody sure that if she pushed it, he'd just up and bugger off back upstairs, he'd pushed his chair back from the table so that he looked like he was poised to take off any minute as it was.

"Well, if you're sure ... but you can tell me ..."

"What? What do you want me to tell you? That they're right and that what they say is true, is that what you think? Because you're wrong, they're wrong ... I'm not gay, so you can stop looking at me like that, okay?"

"Sorry ..."

Molly had no idea where the outburst had come from or what he was talking about when he said about the way she was looking at him, she hadn't thought she was looking at him like anything, and it had never even crossed her mind it could be something like that. And now she was completely out of her depth with absolutely no bloody clue what the right thing to say was, being a step-mum didn't qualify her for any of this. But she had this little memory niggling in the back of her head of Charles talking in bed one night about his time at school and about how some of the boys got a bit involved with each other, that it happened in boarding schools mainly because there were no girls, or so he'd said. He'd laughed and said it hadn't been his bag when she'd asked him, and had rolled over on top of her to prove it and then they'd both laughed, but maybe it was something like that that Sam was on about. But it didn't matter, she was not, definitely not, going to put him on the spot by opening her mouth and asking him, anyway it wouldn't be the first time she'd got things wrong. But she had a horrible feeling she was letting him down.

"Molly ... you won't say anything to my Dad will you? ..."

"Nah ... nothing to tell is there? But ... if there was ... something ...anything ... you do know you could tell him yourself, he's your dad and he loves you, and he'd bloody hate it if he thought there was something that was bothering you and you didn't tell him" She shrugged and smiled at the top of his head where he was concentrating all his attention on stroking the dog's ears and carefully not looking at her, she wanted to reach over and hug him and tell him everything was going to be okay, even if she didn't know that, she still wanted to make him feel better "Just sayin' .. that's all"

"I can't"

-OG-

Sam had given her a quick hard hug, something he hadn't done for as long as she could remember, then vanished back up to his lair and shut the door and taking advantage of the fact that his father was out, had turned the music up to deafening as Molly did what she always did when she had things on her mind, she cleaned. She scrubbed every inch of the kitchen surfaces with neat bleach and enough elbow grease to abolish a nasty outbreak of Ebola, just as she used to do when she was at home in East Ham and was worried about something.

The first she heard of them being back was Millie in the throes of a deeply dramatic "I am SO hard done by" tantrum, one where she'd actually managed to squeeze out a few real tears, as she stood just inside the front door with her hands on hips and yelled at him at a decibel level that would have rivalled a 747 taking off. Apparently he wasn't a _lovely_ daddy anymore, he was a _mean and nasty and horrible_ daddy and she _hated_ him. Chloe and Marcus were thoroughly enjoying every minute of it as they stood and watched and smirked happily as Marcus stuck his tongue out at his little sister who was virtually incandescent with rage, he was happy that just for once it was him doing all he could to wind her up, instead of it being the other way round. Millie tugged off her jacket and flung it away and then wrenched off her shoes and threw them as hard as she could at the wall, earning Charles another glare of pure hatred when he told her to stop it in his sternest voice and she turned and stomped upstairs to her bedroom then slammed the door behind her as hard as she could.

Molly decided not to ask.

"You okay?"

"Yeah, why wouldn't I be? You?"

It was a tiny bit stilted and awkward having, or trying to have, a normal conversation against a backdrop of their middle daughter screaming and kicking seven shades of shit out of her bedroom door while Sam played some apparently experimental music that was actually discordant crap at full volume and the tele went on in the sitting room, one of them helpfully turning the volume up trying to drown out the rest .

"Fucking hell ... peaceful here isn't it?" He raised his eyes to heaven "Are you sure you're okay? The only time I see you doing this is when you're a bit _... upset_ about something" He jerked his head in the direction of the gleaming wet worktops. He was a bit concerned that she might have been mulling things over and getting upset with him again "Our little drama queen is a bit pissed at me ..."

"Yeah, noticed ... I wouldn't worry, she'll get over it ..." It was definitely against her better judgement but she heard her mouth ignoring her brain and asked him what the fuck had happened, even though as she told herself firmly, she wasn't crowing, she really wasn't pleased at all, well, not very pleased, that his bloody halo seemed to have slipped a bit "I'll 'ave you know, I clean this pit all the bloody time ... who the fuck do you think does it? Magic housework fairy?"

"Sorry ... I didn't mean that, I'm just worried that you're okay ... I'm not sure what set her off exactly, to be honest it seemed to be over nothing, one minute she was going on and on about something and the next I was apparently ignoring her, so she started losing it and whacking the back of my seat ... I told her to pack it in and all hell broke loose ... and the others weren't helping ...they were both laughing at her, making her worse" He shrugged "It's bloody difficult to concentrate when you've got world war three going on in the seat behind you"

"Tell me about it" Molly giggled as he kissed the top of her head "I think Sam was spot on what he said"

"Sam?"

"We had a bit of a chat, and he said no-one can ... none of us can know what it feels like to be someone else ... 'n I've told you about a million times what it's like trying to concentrate on driving when they decide to kill each other" Molly looked at the expression of doubt and disbelief on his face as he raised his eyebrows at her "What you looking at me like that for? You sayin' you haven't 'eard me say? You wanna try listening sometimes"

"No, I know you've told me, I just didn't realise ... nope, I'm just amazed to hear that Sam can speak in whole sentences, all I ever get out of him these days is a grunt and the occasional 'if I have to' before he pulls a face that says he's one step away from calling social services"

"You could try talking to him"

"I have ... come on, Molly, you know I have ... I've lost count of the number of times I've tried, it's just ... I've got nowhere, so what's the point?"

"Try again ... and maybe you could try listening to him, he's not very happy at the moment and he feels like ... that no-one listens to him, what he wants"

"I have asked him what he wants to do, but he just shrugs and says he doesn't know ... Okay, I'll have another go ... just for you"

"You're not doing it for me, you're doing it for 'im and you ... but don't bloody tell him I said anything will you? I promised him I wouldn't"

Molly was unbelievably tempted to just give him the gist of the rest of the conversation she'd had with Sam, she hated keeping secrets from him, especially when it was about one of the kids, and even more especially when it was Sam, she knew how worried he was. But she'd made Sam a promise which she'd already partially broken, well, she'd done some hinting that there was something to know which was almost the same thing.

"Maybe, find out what he wants to do instead of telling him ... he doesn't have to do what everyone else wants him to, you know, he's not a little kid ... and anyway he reckons he hasn't got a bloody prayer of passing this exam so he's not going onto Uni whatever his mother might think ... I was only a bit older than him when I joined up and my dad wasn't exactly thrilled ... worked out alright though didn't it?"

-OG-


	15. Chapter 15

_**A/N: Thank you for your feed-back on the tricky subject of the background to Sam's teenage truculence - I have tried to show how Molly's insecurities still influence the way she sees things, and that not even being married to someone like CJ alters who she is or how she feels about everything – and even though they'd made up, there was still a bit of her that was hurting - as promised the next chapter sees them back on a more even keel (making up) and Charles doing his best to talk to Sam and having an exceedingly difficult conversation with his assistant ...**_

-OG-

Livvie hadn't stopped her ceaseless grizzling ever since Molly had woken her from her deep nap in the interests of all of them being fed, watered and in their beds early, Livvie was the only one of their kids who would have happily slept through world war three and what Sam called music, and then equally happily stayed awake all evening. But Molly had _plans_ which didn't actually include entertaining a baby and going up and down the bloody stairs every couple of minutes to beg and plead with the others to just give it up and shut their bloody eyes, so that their mum and dad could have _quality_ time as Charles called it. He'd made his peace with the drama queen who was now all dimples and smiles instead of puce with frustrated anger and who hung round his neck with her legs round his waist like a little monkey just like she'd done as a baby when she used to hang on his leg like a limpet so that he'd got used to limping everywhere. There was no way Molly was going to ask him for the finer details of the peace treaty, she had a feeling she wouldn't be that impressed if his track record of disciplining Millie was anything to go by, it was shit, because he was a total pushover for her big brown eyes that were so like his and his brown curls that were ringlets on her, and the way she looked when she smiled at him with her top teeth missing. The lads from 2 section would have found it very hard, if not impossible, to believe what a soft touch he could be. But whatever it was he'd said to her, he was back in her good books, was apparently a lovely daddy again.

Charles had pulled pizzas from the freezer and shoved them in the oven to burn while he got them all sorted and then off to bed like a bloody military exercise. He'd gone all high-handed with her when she'd tried to help, had said he was more than capable, which he was, and to piss off, which she did, flouncing out of the kitchen. Just because he'd told her to leave it to him didn't mean she had to fall over herself to say thanks, to be _grateful_ or something, and she couldn't help feeling just a tiny bit redundant, which she knew was fucking stupid and that she should be glad he'd taken over and was coping without her stepping in. But she couldn't help it, she was a tiny bit pissed at him for doing it so well without her help. Or, if she was being honest, without her standing there issuing instructions.

 _._

But even being in a strop, she had to admit that a lovely long soak in a bath with bubbles and a cup of tea was well nice _,_ especially as the place smelled lovely. She'd lit the Jo Malone candle he'd given her in her stocking at Christmas and it was flickering away so that she was beginning to relax, had even stopped straining to listen for the moment it all went to shit and she'd have to get out and sort it. On any other day a bath without a constant stream of kids whinging and wanting things and refereeing fights would have been a luxury that called for a lovely big glass of wine to sip while she wallowed and then did something about de-foresting her legs and other hairy bits, but today she'd decided it was probably best to stick with tea. Drinking anything with alcohol would probably be a bit disastrous and even though she had mixed feelings about him coping perfectly well without her, she was determined that all the transparent efforts he was making to get her in the right mood for a really, really early night weren't going to go to shit because she'd run off at the mouth and said something when it would be better not.

Topping up the bath with hot water her eyes were just starting to close in pure bliss as she sank her shoulders into the silky warmth with an ecstatic sigh of pleasure, only for it to get bloody ruined when his phone started to ring and then stopped. And then started again and then stopped and then started up again, so that she wanted to yell 'just fuck off will you, he's busy, he don't wanna talk to you" but didn't. She didn't know where he was exactly, probably with one of the kids, but he'd left his phone in the bedroom and she was pretty bloody sure she knew exactly who it was ringing, who else would keep on and on like that? If it was an emergency and someone in the family needed them, they wouldn't have used his mobile.

The towel on the rail was a bit on the titchy side, she had been going to ask him to fetch her a proper one from the airing cupboard before she got herself out, but she heard him start murmuring softly to whoever it was he'd got sick of ignoring, no prizes for guessing who, and the fact that he was talking to her at all was winding Molly up to the point where she hauled herself out of the bubbles with a lot of huffing and water dripping off every bit of her, then wrapped herself as best she could in the towel that barely covered her bum. She was bloody furious that she couldn't actually hear what he was saying, and not entirely sure who she was most pissed at. Bloody thingy for ringing him here _again,_ him for answering or her for letting it get to her.

"Who was that? Or shouldn't I bother to ask?"

The call was over so that he was sitting on the edge of the bed turning his mobile over and over in both hands and looking down at the floor with a deep frown on his face. He was obviously lost in thought as he worried his bottom lip between his teeth, a frown that vanished the instant he saw her standing in the doorway wearing a skimpy towel and nothing else.

"Sorry ..."

"Does she know this isn't ' _shag your boss'_ day? Did you tell her?"

"For a start that doesn't exist ... not today or any other day ... but nope, I didn't tell her, I need to talk to her face to face to tell her Moll, I can't take the easy way out ... it would feel wrong ..." He put a hand up and tugged the curls on the back of his neck "As if I was running away, being a fucking coward ... not that I'm not tempted ... believe me"

"S'pose ... just wish you would be a coward for once"

"I am, all the bloody time ... but ... I've got to make sure this is sorted out, that she gets the message straight from me, no mistakes, no room for any misunderstanding ... ummm ... but we're okay aren't we? I mean, you're not mad at me again are you? And you're going to catch your bloody death standing there like that ... come here and let me warm you up"

"Yeah, in a minute ... nah, I admit I do wish you'd just tell her to sod off ... why can't she leave you the fuck alone? And where did she get this idea from that it's okay for her to treat me like she doesn't think I matter, she looked at me as if I wasn't even there and you're her boss for fuck sake ... and I'm your bloody wife, and I know she's posh 'n that, and that your mum would love 'er, but she's got shit manners. Trying to make someone feel bad doesn't make you ... anything special ... the least she could 'ave done is be polite even if she does think that you already having a wife is a bit ... inconvenient for her"

"What are you talking about? What do you mean inconvenient?"

"Ask her that ... she'll tell you, she's the one who's doing her best to ... it don't matter ... you know, there are lot of them out there just like her, there are a lot of them at school who look at me as if I don't belong and they're right, I don't, not sure I want to actually" Molly shrugged "I don't fit in"

"What do you mean, you don't fit in? I thought you'd made friends with some of them?"

"Did you? Not so as you'd notice ... couple of weeks back they was in a huddle talking about having some poxy meeting about the fete, or fayre or whatever it is they're calling it, but no-one asked me ... and then later one of them come and said would I do the tattoos, that they thought I'd be spot-on perfect apparently ... s'pose that's what I get for 'aving tattoos although not sure if they realise mine aren't like the kiddy ones, mine don't wash off"

"Bloody cheek, our money pays their fucking wages, I've got a good mind to..."

"To do what? Can't help what they think and anyway it's not you, they crawl all over you, and I don't need you to fight me battles for me, keep telling you I'm a big girl now ... anyway this wasn't the school as such, this was the other lot, the ones who organise everything and who crawl up the teachers' arses with how good they are, smug bitches who are never late and who never send their little buggers in with the wrong bits of kit or the wrong kind of fucking biscuits, the ones who wouldn't dream of aving coco-pops. It's all organic this and fair trade that, and gluten free and loads of other stuff that makes it taste like shit and which ours won't touch with a bleeding bargepole ... they make me wanna stand in the middle of the playground and eat a Pot Noodle, and I never touch the bloody things ... but they already hate me ... and stop laughing it's not funny"

"You're laughing and ... well, it is a bit ... funny I mean ... I can just see you standing there eating it and sticking your tongue out ... sorry ... look, there's not a single one of them can hold a candle to you, you're not only incredibly beautiful but incredibly smart as well ... so don't let them get to you, Molly, they're just jealous"

"Oh yeah ... course they are, I know that, they all wanna be me, don't they? They look at me and they all wanna be Molly James, would all kill to be the dead common one with the tattoos who doesn't speak properly but who bagged herself a tasty army bloke" She paused "Although they might want to do that last bit ... don't s'pose any of them would say no ..." She paused and thought for a second "Do you remember what you thought when you first met me?"

"Of course I do ... I thought you were the prettiest girl I'd ever seen wearing combats ... that you were bloody gorgeous"

"Nah you didn't, you thought I was a cockney gobshite with attitude ... someone who was gonna be a right pain in the backside and hold everyone else back ... and that's who they see ... they see Molly Dawes, the girl whose dad thought having a shower more than once in a blue moon would make him shrink, a knob whose great ambition for his little girl was to see her shack up with a West Ham player ... a girl who was destined for a career on the checkout in Tesco ... until she joined up"

"No they don't ... stop it, no-one sees that when they look at you"

Molly ignored him.

"Yeah they do, but you know something, I'm not ashamed of who I am ... and I'm still that same girl underneath"

"Yes you are, of course you are, you're still the same girl who took no shit from anyone, the one who won a medal for bravery crawling across a fucking minefield in Afghan to stop someone bleeding to death, the medic who saved lives, including mine I might add, on top of being the most beautiful girl I've ever seen"

"Yeah well, that was all a long time ago .. and I'm not sure it's gonna make a whole lot of difference when the kids get older and look at me and see I'm not the same as the other mums, that I don't talk like them for a start... like your mum already does think"

"The day one of them does that is the day I send them to work down a mine. I'm not allowed to do the same thing to my mother unfortunately, much as I'd like to ...but it's never going to happen Molly, not with the kids, they love you and they're as proud of you as I am, and bloody hell, Molls, you can even get Sam to speak in whole sentences"

"I kept thinking about you and _her,_ you know, when her name kept coming up and she keeps on ringing, always seems to be hanging around you somehow, so even before I met her I was _bothered_ , I kept thinking she was me when I first met you, but she's not is she? And then when I did meet her and she put her hand on you like that and looked straight through me ... all I could see was this dead pretty girl who was young and slim with no flabby bits or stretch marks, a girl Fingers would call _a fit bird_ with her really shiny hair, and she made me feel old and a bit scruffy and as if I was in the bloody way and then when I closed my eyes I could see you and her ..."

Molly managed to stop her mouth before she launched into some of the more lurid soft-porn clinch scenarios her brain had conjured up on half a bottle of Vodka the previous night, when she'd been tired and _worried_ and on her own downstairs and had been pissed off and angry with him so that her imagination had run away with her.

"You? Old? Shit, what does that make me, Methusalah? And you're not scruffy ... hey, was this before or after the coconut rum?"

"Shut up ... and I don't know who Metha... thingy whatever it was you said.. is, but you will be old and grey and will keep your teeth in a glass by the bed before me won't you?"

"Thanks for that" He laughed "Will you still love me when I keep my teeth in a glass?"

"I dunno do I? I kept on seeing it in my 'ead, you and her, you licking chocolate spread off her tits" She giggled "Nutella probably"

"Unlikely ..." He put his head on one side and pretended to be considering the picture she'd just painted and tried hard to control the urge to put his head back and laugh out loud as he tucked his tongue behind his front teeth and bit his bottom lip "Very unlikely, interesting idea though...I like Nutella"

"I know you bloody do... but she hasn't really got any, has she ... tits I mean, she's flat-chested"

"Is she? I hadn't noticed ... that's not something anyone's ever likely to say about you is it?"

"Are you sayin' I'm fat?"

He didn't answer, just grinned and shook his head at her before getting off the bed and disappearing into the bathroom where she heard the bath emptying before he came back with a dry hand towel.

"Come here"

He began to rub gently at the dripping wet ends of her hair and Molly leaned back and closed her eyes, enjoying the way it felt as he dried her hair. It was a sensation that she loved, one that always made her feel cosseted and surrounded with love.

"I was thinkin' of getting it cut off ... short"

"Fuck, no ... don't do that, I love your hair ... why on earth would you ...sorry ... sorry ... I'm being bossy again ... if that's what you want of course you have to ...your choice, its your hair not mine and I'm sure it'll look lovely ... I'm sorry"

"It was just an idea, thought it might be easier, that's all"

Which was a huge walloping lie. She'd only considered having her hair cut short when she'd seen Sasha's short, sharp and very shiny bobbed hair, although logically she knew hers would never look anything like that anyway. It would all curl up and she'd have ringlets like Millie and would have to spend hours blow drying it straight after getting the porridge out of it, and then she'd have to go to the hairdressers for a trim every few weeks instead of cutting off the split ends with the kitchen scissors, so perhaps she wouldn't bother after all.

"Probably won't bother"

There was no probably about it, she knew she wasn't going to do anything of the sort. Although he'd said something about being sorry for being bossy when he'd told her not to get it cut, and although she didn't need him to give her permission to get her hair cut or not, he'd sounded bloody appalled at the idea and that was enough for her.

"Can we go to bed now?"

His hands were on her shoulders and he turned her round to face him, then made his puppy dog pleading eyes with the expression on his face that she could never resist, the one that reminded her exactly how much she loved him, and why.

"Unless you'd like me to go downstairs first and see if we've got any Nutella"

"If you want, but if you do, you're washing the bloody sheets after"

He laughed and dropped a tiny kiss on her lips even though what he really wanted to do was pull her into his arms and hold her tightly against him and then keep her there until he was sure he'd made everything better, when he was sure it was all over and done with and that his stupidity was forgiven and forgotten. She'd said she believed him when he'd promised he hadn't touched the bloody girl and that he didn't want to for fuck sake, but he still had this almost overwhelming need for reassurance that everything between them was back to normal.

"I'm really sorry, I never meant to hurt you" He was horrified to see a lone tear rolling down her cheek that he wiped away with his thumb, before putting his other hand up to touch the other side of her face "Please don't cry"

"I'm not"

He bent his head and touched her lips with his, his hands moving to her lower back to pull her closer to him, before he pulled the damp towel off and started to kiss her over and over again, doing everything in his power to make the whole thing go away.


	16. Chapter 16

_**A/N: Thank you for your patience, I know this has been a long time coming but I've given up caffeine (drank far too much coffee) and have spent a lot of time feeling totally bleugh – tired and ratty and unmotivated ... May have to find a substitute as I hate de-caff – thanks to the kind person who suggested Brandy – would give it a whirl but not sure about Brandy for brekkie – Thank you to everyone who reviewed and were kind enough to encourage me to get on and stop prevaricating and post the chapter instead of reading it for the five millionth time and editing it again and again – I hope you enjoy it and will try not to leave it long before the next bit xx**_

It was obvious he didn't understand, well, she wasn't sure she could expect him to really. He had never, ever been like a fish out of water anywhere, had always just fitted in no matter who he was with or where he was, someone like him just had to be himself to be accepted, so how could he know what it felt like to be her? But she'd thought she'd done a half decent job of burying all the shit about not being good enough, had felt she was getting there and was almost a whole different person to the one who used to feel like that all the time but then, things went a bit wrong and there was still all this shit she couldn't quite forget.

"Stop it"

"Stop what? Not doin' anything"

"I can hear you thinking from here"

"I'm just thinking, that's all ... I'm allowed"

"Well don't ... you know it can be dangerous when .." His voice tailed away into a little laugh, wishing he hadn't said it now because she'd obviously forgotten all about the conversation they'd had so long ago but which he remembered as if it was yesterday "Listen ... All I want is for you to be happy, I want to make you happy more than anything else ... it's all I've ever wanted and I know I've told you that before and I can't really blame you if you don't believe me right now ... I know I've fucked it up again ... but ..." He obviously changed his mind about whatever he'd been about to say stopped speaking and smiled then put his head on one side "We are okay aren't we, Moll? You and me? I mean, everything is going to be alright isn't it?"

"Yeah ... course" She wanted to tell him she'd be far happier if he just left it, that the more he pushed the harder it was for her to put it out of her head, she couldn't just forget all about it even if it seemed he could "What were you gonna say just then?"

"Nothing, it doesn't matter ... hey, I can do a bit of grovelling if you like.. " He adopted the "please be kind to me" whipped puppy expression that reminded her of Patches when he got excited and accidentally pee'd on the floor, the look that usually worked like a charm on her ability to forgive him, but he was pulling his bottom lip behind his top teeth as he did his best to control the grin that was trying to break out which somewhat spoiled his chances "It would be my absolute pleasure"

"Would it? Alright smartarse ... go on then ... and stop bloody laughing"

"I'm not" He instantly spoiled it by laughing "Sorry... what would you like me to say?"

"I dunno, you're the one s'posed to be begging ..."

"God, you're a hard woman ...now ... okay ... let me see ..."

"I'm waiting ... " What she was doing was struggling to keep a straight face "I know you think it's funny, but it's not, really it's not, but it's alright for you innit? I mean no-one in your whole entire life has ever looked at you like they do at me ... when people look at you, they see this good looking posh bugger ... not some scruffy minger like me"

"You're not scruffy and you're certainly not a minger and I don't think it's funny, but ... yep, fraid you're right about me, classy as fuck"

"Stop taking the piss and you'd better not let your mother hear you talk like that, she'll think I'm rubbing off on you" Molly turned her head to stop him being able to see just how close she was to losing it.

"I can't help what she thinks, can I? And stop rolling your eyes, Dawsey, and don't bother to deny it ...I can hear you, you know ... tell you what, why don't you come here instead and I'll show you just how classy I can be when I put some effort in"

"Put some effort in? You cheeky sod ... get off ..." Molly tried to curl up in a ball away from him and then drew her knees up as he began to pull her arms away from where she was using them to protect herself from his wandering hands "Get off me ..."

He managed to roll her onto her back and then looked into her eyes without saying anything, his eyes softening as he smiled at her, the smile that still made her knees dissolve in spite of all the time they'd been together, and then cupped her face in both hands and bent his head to start kissing her forehead. Tiny, gentle little kisses that seemed to barely touch her skin, a brush of lips and breath on her eyebrows and then her eyelids as she closed her eyes and her stomach dissolved like a spoonful of sugar stirred into a hot drink. Her breath was catching in her throat as he kissed her cheekbone and then down to the corner of her mouth, and lingered for a few seconds before he started nibbling her bottom lip and she wanted more than anything to pull his shirt off and run her hands over him, to stroke his back and his arms and to show him just how much she loved him, that even when she was bloody furious with him, she still adored him. He'd told her over and over how sorry he was and that he hadn't touched the bloody girl, but there was this little bit of her that wanted to wipe away any thoughts that might be in his head of anything to do with bloody Sasha. She wanted to show him that even though the bloody girl was posh and young and pretty and spoke the same way he did, she was better than her any day.

His breathing got more and more ragged as she slid her hands up and over the muscles of his chest and then wound her fingers in the curls on the back of his neck and pulled his head down. She began to arch herself against him, suddenly desperately impatient to stop thinking and lose herself in the feel of him as he kissed a trail down her neck and whispered "Why the fuck would I even think of wanting anyone else when I've got you?"

"I dunno .. but you better not ... "

"Never, and I'm sorry for being such a dick ... I know I haven't told you enough how much I love you, I've loved you since the day I first met you and you ... well, you laughed at me ... and nothing has changed, nothing ever will, I don't want anyone else"

-OG-

 _ **Charles**_

The minute he opened his eyes he knew it was going to be a shit day, the sort when he wished he could turn the clock back to a time when things in his life had been simple and straightforward. He was tempted, for the first time in a very long time, to simply take the day off and stay at home, just him and Molly and Livvie, and Sam of course, but he could maybe get Sam to walk the dog or something while Livvie was asleep and then he and Molly could go back to bed. They'd made up their fight and had had what Molly had called their 'make-up-sex', but, instead of leaving him feeling on top of the world that she'd forgiven him for being stupid it had left him filled with a real feeling of disquiet. It had felt worryingly _different_ somehow, she'd been almost frantic in a way she never had been before and he was horribly afraid she'd been trying to convince him, or even worse, convince herself, that she still loved him. She'd dropped asleep almost immediately afterwards, but he hadn't been able to. Instead he'd spent an almost sleepless night listening to the rain and watching her sleep and trying to convince himself that he was worrying unnecessarily.

Even as he sat drinking coffee and seriously considered playing truant for a day, he knew in his heart it wasn't going to happen. No matter how tempted he was, he couldn't, because that would just be postponing the inevitable and he needed for it to be finished, as much as anything else he needed to be able to look into Molly's eyes and tell her it was all over and done with. By the time he'd got his arse into gear he was well and truly late which did nothing to improve his jaundiced view of the day ahead. He was not in the best of moods, for a start it had meant the far end of the car park and a run with no time to stop and get a paper, and no chance of a seat or an hour or so of reading the Telegraph to make the commute even marginally less horrendous. Instead he was left standing in a crush of sweaty people doing his best not to inhale last night's curry or something exceptionally garlicky.

To Charles it was yet another nail in the coffin of the life he used to have. He'd had his share of pitching out of bed at stupid o'clock for 5k runs round some benighted hole yelling at sweaty lads to put some effort in, which, at the time he'd considered to be a completely shit way to start any day. But then he hadn't appreciated just what he'd got until it was gone. And he hadn't realised that the power to put them on a charge if they did anything stupid or upset him was so useful, he'd dearly love to have that power back for a few hours in order to make the meeting he was dreading a whole lot more palatable.

He knew he should be thinking about what he was intending to say to her, what his strategy was going to be for this meeting he could well do without, when what he really wanted was to just ignore her, pretend she didn't bloody exist and hope she'd get the message to go and work somewhere else, preferably somewhere a long way away from him. But he'd promised Molly he was going to deal with it, and that was what he had to do, he couldn't let her down or take the easy way out and even though the whole bloody thing was a fucking mess, it was a mess of his making, so it was up to him to sort it out.

His mind kept drifting back to the weekend. It had not been the best he could ever remember, in fact it had been mostly shit and totally his fault and he wanted more than anything to make things right. And now he was standing paperless on a crowded train he found his mind running over and over what had happened on Saturday night to worry him the way it had and had a sudden image of Molly giggling and teasing him about getting Nutella on the sheets although he wasn't aware of grinning until he caught the surprised eye of some woman and looked away hastily before she got the wrong idea. He spent the rest of the journey trying not to look at anyone as he thought about Molly and about the things she'd said, how she felt and what had upset her and squirmed. Why had he thought for one single fucking moment that giving her the benefit of his best 'buck up Dawsey, you know you're awesome' speech would solve anything at all? That it would be the answer to all her worries, the kids, her job, getting help in the house, him behaving like a total dick, his bloody mother .. the list was long as your arm and he had no idea what he'd been thinking. Jesus. He couldn't have been more fucking useless if he'd tried.

-OG-

The usual crowd were rushing and pushing their way off the train at Paddington, and fighting their way onto the tube to Upper Thames Street before swarming like a crowd of bloody lemmings across Blackfriars Bridge. As far as he could see not one single soul looked right or left to even glance at the river glinting in the sunshine, instead they all looked straight ahead as they rushed to their day shut up in a box with artificial daylight where air conditioning meant they couldn't even open a fucking window to get some fresh air. Exactly the same as the day he was headed for and the thought of it made his heart sink. He hadn't really thought about it before, not in any detail, but the thought of spending another day, let alone another twenty years or so doing the same thing day in, day out filled him with horror. Fuck. This wasn't his life, how had this happened?

He cared about the job, that hadn't changed, he still wanted to do the very best he could for the poor bastards who needed help, but he was at his most comfortable out of the office organising people and things in some god awful disaster zone, that's when he felt as if he could breathe. That was his bag, not the rest of it, he just didn't care about the politics of the whole thing, and none of it at all was what he'd expected, none of it was what he'd bargained for when he'd put in his papers and taken the job.

He pinned a reasonably pleasant expression on his face, well at least he hoped it was, and strode into the large open-plan office ready to 'have a word' with Sasha as soon as possible, he wanted to get on and get it over with. But he needn't have bothered because no-one took a blind bit of notice of him, in fact they barely even glanced up when the doors swung open, it was obvious from first glance that there was something way out of the ordinary going on.

Instead of the usual hum of conversation and phones ringing and the laughter and bickering from the crowd by the coffee machine as they debated the weekend television or Saturday's football, the phones were all on the desks off the hook and the staff, including Sasha, were all huddled together in silence round the television which was, as always, showing the news channel. It was permanently on as it supposedly kept them up to date with what was going on but was as a rule, just part of the background noise of the office.

There was something uncomfortably intimate in the sly smile and wave that Sasha gave him when she acknowledged his arrival before going back to being glued, as they all were, to whatever was playing out on the screen. He, in turn, acknowledged her with a small nod and a sinking sensation in his guts as the presenter on Sky News talked to camera with a serious expression on her face and then turned to talk to a sanctimonious and overweight politician who was the bane of his life, or one of them. Whatever it was he was bleating about this time, Charles didn't hear it. He wasn't listening, he was reading with mounting horror the banner headline on the screen that was informing the world there were credible allegations from a whistleblower who was alleging bullying and exploitation of vulnerable people in disaster areas, apparently connected to a trade in aid for sex ...

Oh fffuuuccck...

-OG-

"Right ... listen up ... everyone ..."

He'd very nearly said 'on me' and called them lads, old habits die hard, but the staff now looking at him were not lads by any stretch of the imagination. All three men were a good fifteen years older than him, if not more, and the rest were girls. He'd already checked his e-mail, of which there was the usual abundance but there was nothing whatsoever about any of the shit he'd just seen on the news. But he couldn't just wait for someone to get their act together and let him know what the fuck was going on, he'd have to start organising how they were going to deal with all this in the short-term. That couldn't wait. But until someone told him what was what, he was in the dark with no idea who was involved, whether it was anything to do with them, or how true any of it was, he'd already got a tad pissed at the gossiping and whispering, the laughing in a fairly salacious way at things that might prove to be merely rumours. They needed to get on with business as usual, a shit-storm that may or may not have anything to do with them was no excuse to shut up shop and let everything else go to shit.

"Okay, listen up everyone... " He perched one cheek of his bum on the edge of the desk at the front of the room "First, phones back please ... people do need to get through to us ... and if they're ..."

He looked across at one of the girls who started saying something about how hard it had been earlier when the phones had been ringing off the hook and how it had been the press before they'd taken the receivers off and put them on the desks.

"I know, but we have to be available, and if you get any bloody journalist wanting dirt, we have NO COMMENT to make, we only know as much as they do, and like the rest of the world, we're waiting to find out what it's all about"

He looked round the group and couldn't help noticing that Sasha had perched on the desk nearest to him and that she was not only wearing a very low cut top and making big eyes at him, but she was pulling her elbows into her sides to try and increase her cleavage. Charles wanted to laugh when he remembered what Molly had said about the girl having no tits. She was right. But Jesus, why hadn't he ever noticed just how bloody _obvious_ she was. She'd always seemed a bit over-friendly and he'd known she had a crush on him, that much had been hard to miss when she kept finding excuses to ring him and she had a nasty habit of standing too close, but had she always been this bad and he just hadn't noticed?

"Now, I have no more idea what this is all about than any of you, and until someone tells us what the fu ... what's going on and how much truth there is in any of it, and, god forbid, whether or not we're implicated in any way, speculation is not going to do anything to help, so I'd be grateful if you didn't"

He knew even as he said it that it was a tall order, of course they were going to speculate, he just hoped they weren't going to do it to the wrong people.

"So, let's get back to it ... Sasha, can you spare me a moment please, I need a word"

Charles jerked his head ito indicate that he didn't intend to talk to her in the outer office, that he wanted her to follow him to the privacy of his own small cubbyhole that pretended it was an office, then couldn't help the noticing the smirk on her face as she looked round to see whether people had noticed where she was going. Oh shit, it looked as if they were going to be playing this out to the backdrop of an audience who all seemed to be in the know on something he hadn't paid sufficient attention to.


	17. Chapter 17

_**A/N – sorry I know that it's taken a while – R/L and a whole lot of other stuff got in the way – anyway I hope you enjoy it if you haven't forgotten what it's all about by now – it's another long one I got a bit carried away and forgot to watch the word count – promise the next one won't be so long**_

'

 _ **Charles**_

She'd waltzed past him into the office and had brushed her body against him, apologising as if it had been accidental, which he seriously doubted but which made him step back hastily before she perched on the edge of the visitor chair in front of his desk, and immediately hitched it forward by a couple of feet to rest her elbows on the desk. She leaned forward with her chin in her hands as she'd done a thousand times before, but he'd never before seen it as a ploy to get him to look at her tits,, but he did now. And he wanted to tell her to stop wasting her bloody time and to sit up properly as if she was one of the kids slouching at the table. He had to bite his tongue to stop himself saying something that he would no doubt regret.

"Right ... I'd like you to tell me what the fuck that was all about"

He jerked his head to indicate the main office, knowing it probably wasn't wise but he was annoyed enough to want her to know that he wasn't blind, that he'd seen the exchanges of meaningful smirks and knowing looks and the raised eyebrows and had heard the giggles so was waiting for some sort of explanation. It was getting harder by the minute to believe that he hadn't really taken any of it seriously before, had thought it was mildly amusing if a tad irritating but he'd even been vaguely flattered so that he was left wondering where the fuck his head had been recently, apart from up his own arse. Her behaviour was anything but amusing and he had long since ceased to be flattered.

He put on what Molly called his best Captain Stern-face and waited for her answer more convinced than ever that she'd been spreading bollocks of some sort about a relationship between them that only existed in her own head. But Sasha wasn't a bit concerned, apparently hadn't even noticed the expression on his face or that his usual smile was missing as she fluttered her eyelashes and giggled.

"I know, it was a shock wasn't it? I'd got no idea there was something like that going on, mind you some of them are a bit on the sleazy side so it wouldn't surprise me if it turned out to be one of them" She half rose from her chair and moved towards the door with the obvious intention of shutting it when he'd quite deliberately left it open, a closed door could so easily be misconstrued smacking of a desire for privacy as it did..

"No, leave it open ..."

She looked a bit taken aback at the sharp tone of his voice, but then began to giggle again which was seriously getting on his nerves; he wasn't finding anything remotely funny about any of it. He'd always known that she was full of thick skinned self-confidence which helped her ignore the in-fighting that went on between the different Aid Organisations. She'd always refused to get involved in any of it, hadn't let it upset her in any way and he had to admit that he'd seen it as a strength, even though it was not a bit how Molly would have reacted, she'd have tried to make it all better. But Sasha lacked the empathy, something he now found bloody annoying.

"I'm not talking about that"

He picked up his pen and began to twirl it round in his fingers and thought about what he wanted to say next, a habit that Molly said drove her fucking insane, but Sasha didn't even seem to notice there was anything remotely censorious in his manner.

"We don't even know if it's got anything to do with us, do we? Not yet. We don't actually know if there's any truth in it full stop ... Anyway it's not ... What I'm asking you Sasha is to tell me what was actually going on out there just now"

"I don't know, I've got no idea what you're talking about ... there's nothing going on, not that I know of"

She flushed and looked away like a guilty child caught out in a lie which told him all he wanted to know, and raised his eyebrows in disbelief. A defiant expression crept over her face as it belatedly dawned on her that there might be something for her to worry about.

"I think you know perfectly well what I'm talking about Sasha ... but ... Okay ... no matter ... just as long as you understand that it stops right now because I don't want to have to make anything official ..."

He shrugged, hoping she wouldn't call his bluff. He'd got no idea if there was anything he could do without confiding in HR which he now wished he'd done earlier, he should have said something to them, but if he was honest, it had all felt a bit vague. Still was really, no-one had actually SAID anything he could quote.

"You know that we need to be 100% professional, Sasha, especially at the moment and this is not what anyone would call acceptable behaviour . ... so lets have no more and no more calling me at home either unless it's a genuine emergency, alright? Do you understand? It really has got to stop"

He could see there was no bloody chance that she was going to just meekly apologise for being a pain in the bloody arse or for saying whatever it was she'd been saying and that it was highly unrealistic to believe that would be an end of it, that with a bit of luck she might just nod and say she was sorry and sod off with her tail between her legs. Realistically he knew she was bound to try and defend herself, to paint a picture of him imagining things and taking his irritation about the news out on her.

But he wasn't a bit interested in anything she had to say and he didn't actually give much of a shit if he was being unfair by not letting her tell her side of it, he didn't want to prolong a conversation that over as far as he was concerned. He'd said what he wanted to say and now he wanted her to just piss off, even though he was conscious of walking a fine line between telling her to just do the job she was paid for and leave him the fuck alone and avoiding saying anything that could land them in court with her claiming unfair something or other.

But he was tired and pissed off and was sick of the sight of her, as well as being concerned about things outside his control and the possible ramifications of the shit that had hit the fan earlier and where it might possibly land. And he was deeply worried about his marriage.

"If I've done something to upset you I didn't mean to" She took a deep breath and pasted the most wide eyed look of misunderstood innocence on her face that she could conjure up "I thought you liked me ... I thought we liked each other, I thought we were friends"

"Sasha, it's not a question of whether I like you or whether we're friends or not, we're colleagues, we work together and you're very good at your job... I'd be sorry to lose you... so let's hope it won't come to that ...now ... I think we need to get on ... so can you do an update, see how far behind schedule we are on the Yemen"

"This is about last Friday isn't it? I knew ... .. I mean it was obvious she didn't like me and that she didn't like you and me being together ... don't shake your head like that, we both know I'm right and that it's about her being jealous, I know that and so do you, even if you don't want to admit it"

"I have no idea what you're talking about"

Jesus, just what the fuck was going on in that head of hers? And who did she think she was talking to? He wanted to slap the self-satisfied expression off her face and to tell her that he wasn't stupid, that he knew she'd made bloody sure Molly got the idea there was something to be unhappy about.

"Were you not listening to me just now, Sasha?" He was doing his best to stay calm and not to yell at the stupid bitch to get out of his sight "It's about being professional 100% of the time because that's what I need from you, nothing else ... and there is no you and me"

She almost tipped the chair over in her rush to get up and away from him and slammed the door behind her with as much force as she could muster before marching off in the direction of the Ladies with her head down, the focus of a great deal of attention. He had a nasty feeling that she was managing to produce a few tears which would guarantee a deeply sympathetic audience when she launched into her version of events which he was pretty sure wouldn't show him in a very good light. Fuck, he didn't particularly care what they thought of him at that moment but he hadn't expected it to end like that, although he wasn't entirely sure what it was he had expected, and thinking it was over was almost certainly premature. He was pretty sure that wasn't the last he was going to hear of it... that Lady Luck seemed to have deserted him ...

-OG-

 _ **Molly**_

She'd looked everywhere she could think of, in all her pockets and under the seats and on the floor but she couldn't find it anywhere so had to reluctantly accept that she'd left her bloody phone at home. At least she hoped that's where it was and that she hadn't lost it, hadn't put it on the car roof or something and forgotten all about it in the rush to get going. There'd been such a bleeding racket with everyone arguing and trying to hit one another and all yelling at her to referee and Livvie bawling her head off, that she hadn't been able to think straight let alone notice she hadn't got it. Until now.

He'd gone off that morning without kissing her goodbye which was the very least she'd expected after their clusterfuck of a weekend, but he'd just kissed the top of her head and gone flying out the door saying something about being fucking late so that her day had started going downhill even before it had got going. She'd yelled at him to drive careful as he ran to the car but he didn't come back or even look back, just waved a hand in the air to show he'd heard her and at that moment she'd have given anything she had to just turn the clock back to the days when he wouldn't have dreamt of leaving her like that, no matter how late he was.

As soon as he'd gone Millie decided her heart was broken in bits because he'd only yelled goodbye to them all and hadn't kissed her properly and that _'she needed to tell him something'._ So she'dflung herself on the hall floor in a full blown dramatic melt-down and for once Molly had known exactly how she felt. She wouldn't have minded flinging herself on the floor to join in, she'd have quite liked to have a melt-down herself.

By the time the kids were safely locked up in school and she'd strolled back to the car she was beginning to feel marginally better, the sunshine and the peace and quiet of it being just her and Livvie who had stopped bawling and was pointing at things and babbling were making her feel a bit less shit, even though she was already bloody exhausted and it wasn't even nine o'clock. And then she couldn't find her phone and began to get all wound up again. They'd said there'd be a text this morning about her interview, and she couldn't even check to see what time they wanted to see her, it could be this morning and she wouldn't be there, and she'd wanted very badly to ring him and tell him she was sorry that the weekend had been shit and that she loved him, and to hear him say he was sorry too, and that he loved her as well. And now she couldn't do any of it because she seemed to have lost her sodding phone and if she ended up missing the interview for her job she'd be fucked.

What she really wanted was to go to sleep and wake up to find things had magically got all better, that they'd gone back to the way they used to be. She knew she couldn't expect to still be the centre of his universe, not after all this time, not like when they were first together and didn't have a shit about annoying habits or stuff like that, to a time when they never got bored as long as they were together, but all the little things that had been making her so twitchy hadn't turned out to be that important after all, not really. She was bored and restless and lonely and dead fed up with 'same old, same old' so she'd thought she wanted things to change, to get a job, get a life, but as soon as bloody Sasha had stuck her oar in their lives, fluttering her fucking eyelashes at him and tossing her hair about, it had all changed again. She'd always known that other women were going to find him attractive, well, they'd have to be blind not to, but it hadn't really worried her that much before now, but she could see her having to spend the rest of her life fighting off the likes of bloody Sasha and that scared the shit out of her. There was no way she could imagine being without him.

She hated that nothing had really changed, they'd had a shit weekend but he was still going to be with her all day because he'd said he couldn't just get rid and Sasha wasn't just going to sod off anytime soon, not when she'd got a huge crush on him so Molly had to try and stop thinking about it. She couldn't help being a little bit jealous at the thought of the two of them being together on their own, chatting and laughing and sharing stuff because underneath she was still a little bit afraid that Sasha would be able to talk him round. She couldn't bear the thought that if that happened it was her own fault, she'd been the one who'd been pissy for weeks because she was fed up, not him. But not with him, never with him, she didn't want him to go, she'd been fed up with herself, not with him.

 _All I Ask Of You_ was on the radio making Molly grin as she remembered Charles taking her to see Phantom and how she'd bloody loved it and he'd said the words of that song were written for them and how that had made her feel and how much she wished it was still like that, that all that hadn't gone to shit. It had been the first time she'd ever been to a proper show and not a gig in some pub and she remembered every bit of it as though it has just happened even though it was years ago now and began to sing along, humming and _la la_ ing when she couldn't remember the words. Not that it mattered, there was only a few sheep to hear her and they wouldn't give a fuck whether she knew the words or not or that she couldn't sing to save her bloody life. She'd got no illusions about it, her two sisters had seen to that, even though Charles had argued with them but then he was biased, but she loved singing as long as there was no danger of anyone hearing her that would snigger or make smart-arsed comments. Suddenly tears were pricking her eyes as she tried hard to remember the last time she'd heard him sing round the house, and couldn't. All she did know was it had been a very long time ago which made her want to cry, he used to sing Elton John all the time when he was happy ...

She made up her mind to go to Waitrose or Marks later on and get something for his tea that wasn't chips out the freezer, something nice and she'd do some proper vegetables for a change or maybe get one of those meal deal things with a pudding. She wouldn't get the chocolate tart that she loved but which he said was horrible, far too sweet, but would get the lemon one that he really liked and she'd get a bottle of wine and then they could have it when the kids had gone to bed. It was not only a long time since she'd heard him sing, it was also a bloody long time since they'd sat down for a meal together, just the two of them, well except if you counted Friday night at that auction thing, and no-one could say that had gone well.

-OG-

"Has what's going on got anything to do with Dad or his lot?"

"Sam, how many times? Be careful on those bloody stairs, you're gonna break your bleeding neck"

She'd barely made it through the front door and hadn't had a chance to do anything when Sam had come rushing down to where she was sorting out coats and finding Livvie some bricks to play with while she filled the kettle and got out the tea bags.

"'ang on, I'm making a cuppa, do you want one?"

There were no Coco-Pops because the kids had had them and had spilled them all over the table so there were none left in the packet so she found a slice of bread and checked it for mould before putting it in the toaster and flicking the kettle on. She was suddenly bloody starving as well as parched because she'd forgotten to have breakfast, what with Millie's tantrum and being late for bloody school, something Charles was always ticking her off for.

"Has _what_ got to do with your dad?" She blew on her tea and took a small sip and turned to look at him "'ere, 'ave you seen my phone anywhere?"

"No sorry... Listen Moll, ... are you listening? They're saying people have been using the aid money to pay for prostitutes or sex parties with under-age girls or something ... and they've been trading aid for sex ... and I just wondered ..."

"WHAT? ... Where did you 'ear that?" Molly snorted a laugh that was full of scepticism "Don't believe it, it's that fake news shit innit? And your dad would never do anything like that"

"No, I didn't really think he would ... but it's everywhere, Moll, on Twitter and Facebook and it was on the news just now, I don't mean about Dad, but it must be true, some whistleblower said it ... some insider ... or he was, so he should know"

"Nah, sorry ... don't believe it, he's probably got fired for something and it's his way of getting his own back ... he's causing bother" Molly stopped and thought for a moment as she buttered her toast "And even if was true, and I don't think it is for a minute, your Dad would never, ever have anything to do with something like that" Molly chewed at her bottom lip suddenly desperately concerned about Charles "Shit, Sam he'll be going nuts, I'm going to ring him in a minute, see if he's okay .."

"Before you do, there's something I need to tell you ... he's not going to be happy with me"

"Why ... Shit, what have you done?"

"I was talking to Mum ... and I got a bit fed up because she kept nagging and going on about how important it was that I did revision and wanted to know how much time I was spending studying and whether I was wasting time, so I told her I wasn't going to do this fu... exam ... said I wasn't going back to school at all, and she went apeshit, said she was going to have it out with Dad" He pulled a face "I think she thinks I'm still seven and she can make me do what she wants by threatening me with no pocket money ... oh and yelling a lot ... or that Dad will do it for her because she's not here, but she says he's got to ring her "

"Oh has he? Well there goes her mother of the year award again" Molly swallowed hard "You know what Sam, it'd be a hell of a lot easier for her to ... understand ... if you had a _plan_ of what you're gonna do instead ... well as long as you've given up the idea of being and international drug dealer if you tell her that she'll have a Julius"

"Heard it pays well"

"Hilarious"

"Let me see" He started ticking things off on his fingers "I'm not going to be a doctor or a solicitor or a fucking accountant, or anything else my Mum thinks is suitable, and I don't want to dress up and march up and down like Dad either" He grinned at her looking exactly like his father when he was teasing "I haven't got a prayer of passing this bloody exam, Moll, so there's point in me even sitting it and that means there's no danger of me getting into Uni" He shrugged "According to Mum that means the world will come to an end ... so I might have to consider drugs"

"What selling them or taking them?" She sniggered and shook her head "You're right you're not seven you're a grown-up, so why don't you be one? I was only a coupla months older than you when I joined the bloody army ... my dad weren't exactly thrilled but I did it anyway ... what I'm trying to say 'ere is maybe you should stop worrying about what everyone else wants and think about what it is _you_ want"

"I ... don't know ...what I want"

Molly raised her eyebrows and looked at him steadily, she remembered what Charles had told her once about the power of silence, of not jumping in and prompting someone when they went all quiet on her.

"Not really"

"That's helpful Sam ... look, there must be something you want to do ... you need to think about it and come up with something that isn't laying on your bed all day watching tele ... or selling something iffy down the pub"

-OG-

"James"

The way he'd barked out his name sounded as if he didn't know it was her, or at least she hoped that was why he sounded like he was all distant and distracted, that he was annoyed at the interruption. It was later than she'd intended because it had taken her forever to find her phone, eventually finding it on the windowsill in the loo where she'd dumped it when she'd rushed in for an emergency pee before the drive to school. The news had been getting worse all day as the different people got all worked up about the abuse of the aid money as they kept on describing it and she was getting more and more worried about him. She hadn't been bullshitting when she'd told Sam how upset Charles would be.

"It's me ... sorry, you up to your eyes in it or something? Look, if you're busy it don't matter I just wanted to make sure you were alright"

"Yup ... I'm fine..." She knew he was lying and was swamped with another flood of anxiety for him "Listen if there's nothing in particular, can I call you back? I'm actually right in the middle of something at the moment"

"Yeah course ... nah, look, don't worry ... it can wait till later, just wanted to say ... I'm fond of you and I wanted you to know in case I haven't said it enough"

"Ditto"

"Ditto? Bloody ditto ... I were expecting something a bit more romantic than that" She giggled and was rewarded with the sound of his soft laugh "See you later"

"Can't wait"

"Ditto"

-OG-

She was barefoot with her back to him totally unaware that he was standing in the kitchen doorway she didn't even know he was home as he stood in silence and watched her. Her hair was streaming down her back in a shiny waterfall and she was wearing her favourite skin tight jeans that were so faded they were now a soft grey instead of black, jeans that she'd told him made her scruffy but which clung to the curve of her bum like a second skin. She looked beautiful and was swamped with a rush of feeling, as if his heart had skipped a beat.

The minute she realised he was there she started to say something, to ask him one of the thousand questions that were swirling round her brain.

"Sshh"

He put his hand on her shoulder and turned her to face him, then put a finger to her lips and bent his head until his forehead was resting against hers and he closed his eyes Molly looped her arms round his waist as they stood in silence for what felt like an eternity until he murmured "Only you"

"Ditto".


	18. Chapter 18

_**A/N: Welcome to version 3 of this chapter, I wrote it, hated it because it wasn't the little film I saw in my head and as you know I need to be able to see and hear it before I'm happy so I re-did it, and then lost it somewhere on my laptop. My hero kept telling me that it must be there somewhere so I kept on driving myself insane looking for it, then gave up and started again and let me tell you it's unbelievably difficult to write something again when you can't remember exactly what you put the last time ... I wanted to show the struggles CJ is having as he tries to cope with the way his life has changed after leaving the career that he loved and where he was happy for so many years, that doing something different isn't a walk in the park and that his problem with Sasha was compounding the way he feels, but that it wasn't the whole issue. Anyway, time to man up and stop prevaricating and publish - hope you enjoy it.**_

-OG-

 _ **Charles**_

He'd spent a lot of the day bitterly regretting that he hadn't managed to come up with a reasonable excuse for ducking out of the whole thing, but then he'd had other things on his mind when the call had come in. But even though he was struggling to see what he could possibly contribute that was in any way useful to a damage limitation plan, basically he knew fuck-all about any of it, he'd still ended up stuck for hours in a succession of interminable meetings drinking stale coffee and contributing precisely nothing as he listened to people talk over one another making determined efforts to make sure no shit flying from the fan was headed in their direction. The only time he felt as if he might be remotely useful was in helping them decide what they were going to prioritise if government aid was restricted or withdrawn as his bête noir Mr Smug Bastard was demanding, but no-one really wanted to take the possibility of that seriously. It was as if they were merely going through the motions of pretending a catastrophe was looming when everyone knew it was just going to quietly slip back under the carpet as soon as the media got bored and moved onto something else. Everything would then just quietly go back to normal and no-one seemed to be the slightest bit concerned about the ramifications if aid donations were suspended without contingency plans being in place.

It was getting late when he walked back to the office on his own and he was glad of the relative emptiness of the streets and the peace that was hopefully going to help to clear his head a bit. He was exhausted from too much terrible coffee and a day spent in stuffy rooms trying hard to listen attentively to the clamour of a load of hot air and fuckery, all of which amounted to a complete waste of the day.

It all seemed a very far cry from his days in the army, which admittedly hadn't always been a bed of roses but he couldn't ever remember a time when every minute of a day had just served to increase his conviction that he was in the wrong job.

The one good thing was that he'd managed to avoid seeing anything more of Sasha, in fact he hadn't clapped eyes on her since she'd flounced off in high dudgeon. He'd known only too well that dwelling on his conversation with her wasn't going to do anything to improve his frame of mind so had managed to put her out of his mind completely until he keyed in the code for the door and was then hugely relieved to find there was no sign of her in the office. It had belatedly occurred to him that she might be there, or even worse, she might be there on her own because once upon a time she would almost certainly have been laying in wait and he'd have treated it as a matter of routine, but didn't think he had anything like enough patience left to deal with it now. Well, not without losing his temper. Luckily everyone, including her, seemed to have taken advantage of his absence to bugger off on time which he could well understand given it had probably been a mad house all day and anyway he was actually about to do the same thing himself.

He was going home to see Molly and the children if they weren't already in bed, he looked up at the clock on the wall and checked the time before swallowing hard, he kept forgetting just how late he was, or if they were already in bed he would maybe take the dog for a long walk instead to clear the headache that was now bad enough to be making him feel vaguely sick. Everything could wait out until the morning. Hopefully by then he'd feel a little less shit and could turn his mind back to the job he was being paid for, because he sure as hell hadn't done that over the last few hours.

But he was unable to bring himself to just walk away without at least checking his voice-mail, just needed to make sure there wasn't anything crucial that he'd missed while he'd been sitting in a stuffy room drinking terrible coffee and listening to bullshit. The cold hand of dread almost immediately had his gut in a vice as he started listening to his messages and heard the soft voice of the girl from HR asking him to call her office as a matter of urgency, that apparently she needed to see him as soon as possible.

Oh fuck.

Sitting on the train going home he couldn't shut out the little voice in his head that was replaying the whole bloody awful confrontation with Sasha. For years he'd listened to himself tell others that everyone makes the occasional mistake, but it was what you did about it that counted, it had been part of his job and he'd always prided himself on his ability to do just that. But not this time, this time he'd badly fucked it up. He should have just been straight with her and told her to fuck off, should have told her weeks ago that she was being bloody inappropriate and to pack it in, should have spelled it out in words of one syllable not waited for her to get the hint, which was without a doubt what the girl from HR wanted to go over with him. He only wished he knew what Sasha had been saying so he could at least be a bit prepared for whatever was coming his way.

However it was all very well to sit on a train and keep going over all the ways he could have handled it better, all the things he could have said or should have said when it was far too late to change anything now.

Ever since the day he'd first met her he'd wanted to look after Molly, he'd always wanted to make sure she was okay, it was what he did, even though he knew it bugged her sometimes. She'd accused him occasionally of treating her like a kid, had said he was being bossy and would tell him that she was perfectly capable of looking out for herself. And she was right, he deserved every word of it, but it was his way of showing her how much he loved her and he couldn't help it, every instinct he possessed told him to do everything he could to protect her, to keep her and their children safe. He'd never, not for a single second, envisaged that the day might arrive when he'd risk her security by walking away from a problem. Not that there was a real possibility of him doing that, no matter how much he loathed, well all of it in fact, everything that had happened and no matter how much he regretted leaving what he'd known so well for so many years, he couldn't just walk away, he needed to pay the fucking mortgage for a start. Either that or they'd end up having to uproot their lives and sell The Barn, the home that she loved, well he did as well, but that was always supposing that he had a choice in the matter and that the job didn't decide they could very well do without him. He had a distinctly uncomfortable feeling about everything that was going on, most of which he had no real control over at all.

They'd never be exactly homeless, of course, whatever happened Royal Crescent would always be there as an option, but even in his wildest dreams he couldn't imagine asking Molly to live there with his mother, that was something that didn't bear thinking about.

-OG-

 _ **Molly**_

It had been an endless day and time had stood still for a good bit of it. She'd been distracted and worried about him and had found it hard to settle to anything, had been irritable with the kids and had had to say she was sorry, and as soon as it got past tea time she'd found herself looking at the clock all the time as she couldn't help wondering what the fuck was keeping him. The later it got, the more annoyed and worried she got and the more the clock seemed to have speeded up the more tempted she was to just ring him and ask him where the fuck he was. She'd picked up her phone and had stood with her finger poised, but had then kept changing her mind, he hadn't rung her so there was probably nothing wrong as such, and she didn't want to be like some nagging wife waiting by the door with a rolling pin, or have him think she was checking up on where he was. She didn't want him to think she was suspicious about who he was with or what he was doing, but she was desperate to know what had happened, if he'd even had a chance to say anything at all, what with all the rest of the shit hitting the fan. It probably hadn't been top of his priority list, she knew that and just because it was top of hers didn't mean he had to drop everything and do it regardless of what else was going on. Anyhow there was no way she wanted to start another row, especially not a row over bloody Sasha again.

Molly was good at waiting out, she'd done it before, and when he finally got home it felt like no matter how much she wanted to ask him, it would be all wrong to start interrogating him when he looked so shit, when he actually looked a bit ill. He was so bloody pale and had these dark smudges under his eyes so that he looked like he hadn't slept in a week and as if his head was banging, more tired than she'd ever seen him before. He looked worse even than when he used to come to the end of a long spell of night exercises or something and he used to look a bit shit then, but not like this, he looked _worn down_ somehow, as if all he wanted now he was home with her was to just stand there and not say anything, just hold her, breathe her in somehow.

She'd been going to tell him about his orders to ring Lady Muck of Dubai but decided that the bloody mother of the year might just have to wait a bit longer, it was probably the last thing he needed was a bit more drama with Sam and a nice haranguing from his ex. Anyway it probably wouldn't make much odds, she couldn't see Sam changing his mind and going back to school like a good little boy like they wanted, well not just because his mum yelled at his dad a bit, or at least she didn't think so, although she could be wrong of course, it had been known. But she couldn't help being worried what Charles was going to think when he found out it was a bit her fault, that she was the one who'd told Sam to man up and had encouraged him to stand up for himself, but she hadn't thought it through, not really, and Charles probably wasn't going to like it. But he seemed like he'd had a really shit day so she'd maybe tell him about it later... . He moved back to look at her and then bent his head and kissed her with just the tiniest brush of his lips on hers before he closed his eyes again and rested his head back where it had been before.

"Bad as that?"

"What?"

"Shit day?"

Charles lifted his head away from her forehead and moved to rest his back against the draining board before putting his hands down on each side of him and looking at her as he bit his lip.

"I've had better, you?"

"Yeah ... well, you know, it was okay I s'pose"

It was on the tip of her tongue to start telling him about not getting a text about her interview even though they'd promised they'd let her know today, and how she thought that probably meant the job had gone down the shitter and about Millie's teacher sending a little note home asking her to come and see her which was a bit worrying because she'd got no bloody clue what it was about. Millie had just shrugged and run off to play when she'd asked her what she'd been up to, which was no bloody help at all and in Molly's experience notes from school spelled trouble with a capital 'T'. But he probably didn't need to hear any of that either at that moment, it was more things that could wait cos he looked like he'd got the whole world on his shoulders already.

"You 'ungry?"

"Nope ... well a bit but not particularly, I'll get something later perhaps"

"Right" Molly took a deep breath and smiled, trying to look and sound positive "I got one of them dinners from Marks, one of them meal deal jobs but ...sorry, think I might have singed it a bit ... I'm not sure if it's ... but I can get you some of that if you like"

"Are you having some?"

"Nah, think I'll pass, thanks"

"Oh that good eh? well in that case maybe I'll make a sandwich later"

Molly could feel ripples of laughter starting to make him shake as he nudged her with his shoulder. She didn't exactly mind that she was making him laugh, was making him feel better, in fact she was glad if he was feeling a bit less shit, but she didn't want to laugh herself, it was the story of her bloody life that it was because she'd fucked up and anyway it wasn't funny, not really. She definitely hadn't seen any funny side when she'd taken the burnt offering out of the oven, Beef Wellington or it used to be and it had smelled amazing when it was cooking so she'd been really looking forward to it, but then it had smelled a bit like something was burning and she realised she'd forgotten to set the bloody timer for the oven. It looked more like barbecued boot than anything else.

"Only you"

"I hope you mean that in a nice way cos I've just said I'm sorry ... and I am, it was an accident but then it don't matter if you're not 'ungry" She opened her eyes as wide as they would go in an attempt to look as innocently apologetic as Millie at her best and then grinned her trademark goofy grin "I can get you a sandwich or I got some of that lemon tart thing you like, so you can have that instead if you want" She paused and pretended to be giving it some thought "And I promise I won't spit on it if you promise to stop laughing at me ... "

"Lovely ... thank you ..." He was still laughing as he nudged her again with his shoulder and then moved to drop another little kiss on her mouth and then kissed the furrow that had appeared on her forehead "What would I do without you?"

"Dunno ...'ave proper dinners prob'ly" Molly grinned and stood on tiptoe to lean across and kiss him as lightly as he'd kissed her "One's that's not been ... a bit burnt..."

"Well there is that ..."

"Oi ... listen you, don't hold your breath will you, cos you're stuck with me ... I'm not going anywhere"

"Believe me that's the best thing I've heard all day ... whatever you do, don't ever change will you? And thank you I'd love some lemon dessert instead of burnt offeri..."

"Shut up ... 'n we call it pudding where I come from not dessert ...posh bugger ... hey, we got wine 'n all if you want" Molly giggled "It's the good stuff ... cost me more than a fiver"

"Oh well in that case, I'd love some"

-OG-

He'd been hungry earlier, but the longer he'd sat on that train, the more his appetite had diminished, and even two glasses of wine on an empty stomach had done nothing to help him think of the right way to tell her about it, the conversation with Sasha that he'd made such a total bollocks of, and the summons to explain himself to HR and what he suspected. He knew she was dying to ask and that it wasn't fair to keep her in the dark, but he wasn't looking forward to seeing the look on her face that said she was worried and disappointed in him.

-OG-

"I'm sorry about burning the dinner... I bought it cos I wanted it to be special, you know, just you and me, but that's me all over innit? Good at stuffing things up"

"No you're not, and it doesn't matter a bit about the bloody dinner, come here" He pulled her onto his lap and put his head back on the sofa to look up at the ceiling, carefully avoiding meeting her eyes as he twirled a lock of her hair round his fingers into a ringlet "I really fucked up today Moll"

"Why, what did you do?"

"I don't know where to start really"

"Stop scaring me and just bloody tell me"

She sat absolutely still and listened without saying a word as he continued to play with her hair and re-lived the nightmare of his day from start to finish, ending with the summons to explain himself to HR. He had no idea whether she was upset or angry or whether she was in fact disappointed in what he was telling her but knew she was bound to be worried about what was going to happen, but he still had his head back with his eyes shut because he didn't want to look into her eyes and see that she knew how badly he'd let her down. He knew she loved him despite all the shit that had gone on over the weekend and that she'd forgive him if things didn't work out the way he wanted them to, but even though he thought he knew her through and through, he'd underestimated her.

"Knew it, bloody knew it, knew I should have landed her one ... should have smacked her in her gob" She put a hand up and stroked his hair back from his forehead slowly shaking her head from side to side "What you gonna do? "

"I have absolutely no idea ... but you do know this could get very shitty, don't you, especially with all the stuff on the news, all this witch hunt that's going on, and you know how sorry I am?"

"Yeah, I'm not stupid ... but you 'aven't got anything to be sorry for, you 'aven't done anything, 'ave you? It was her not you" She shook her head again "I'll tell them if you want, and then it would be my absolute pleasure to track her down and smack her teeth down her gob for her... might even set me Nan on her"

"Oh God, don't tell Nan, she'll be down there before you know it, shit ..."

"She loves you... and she don't mean to be a bit ... well, you know what she's like"

"I know"

He cupped her face in his hands and kissed her, then gave a deep sigh of relief and began to kiss round her neck as the dog flew across the room with his lead still clipped to his collar as Sam yelled at him and tried to grab it without success. The dog was focussed on his headlong dash to get to Charles and his paws scrabbled frantically across Molly making her shout at him to pack it in, but he ignored her and managed to stand on her to get to Charles and give him a thorough face licking as Charles turned his head from side to side and put his hands up to fend him off and try to avoid his tongue.

"What did she say Dad?"

"Stop it, Patchey, come on get down" Charles unclipped the lead and ruffled his head before trying to push him gently off Molly and onto the sofa "Yep I love you too, stupid mutt"

He suddenly registered what Sam had said "What did _who_ say?"

For one awful minute he thought Molly had unburdened all her worries about Sasha on Sam, that she'd told him all about him having a meeting with the girl and in fact all about the whole bloody thing. He looked at her quickly, but she was staring as Sam with an appalled expression on her face and trying desperately to get him to shut up and his heart sank at the thought.

"Mum"

"Mum? Sorry? Why would I be talking to your mother?" He looked from one of them to the other and properly registered Molly's exaggerated face pulling that unfortunately Sam didn't seem to have noticed "Come on out with it you two ... what the fuck's going on?"

To Molly's utter relief he didn't say a word of censure when Sam had finished giving him a highly edited version of events which didn't include any reference to her part at all for which she was dead grateful, she really didn't want Charles to feel like her and Sam had been ganging up on him behind his back. She was scared he'd think she was trying to undermine him or something which she hadn't meant to do, although if she was being honest she had meant to maybe undermine his mother a bit. But she could see that Charles might well see it a bit different. Sam was smiling, as if it was all good now that both his parents knew he wasn't going to do what they wanted, and as if he realised his father wasn't going to try and force him to change his mind. He seemed confident somehow, as if he'd made up his mind and was _happy_ about itfor the first time in bloody ages.

"Come on Patch, let's get a drink"

Sam went off to the kitchen still calling the dog and sounding as though he hadn't got a care in world, although Molly wasn't quite sure why. He still had all this stuff to sort about what he was going to do next, and it wasn't like his dad was usually some cruel ogre or something, it wasn't even as if he was a selfish git like hers.

"Sorry, know I should 'ave said something, but didn't think it was, you know, urgent"

"Yep you should have ... is there anything else you haven't told me?"

"Nah, why would there be?"

Molly turned her head away so that he wouldn't see that she was lying as Charles shook his head slowly from side to side and then lifted his wrist to make a show of checking the time "Too late to ring her now..." He snorted a laugh down his nose "She'll be out on her broomstick terrorising the locals at this time of night"

"DAD"

Molly began to giggle at the same time as Sam laughed out loud, he sounded really happy, in a way that she hadn't heard for weeks or months really, it had been ages since she'd heard him laugh like that "I'm going to tell her you said that"

"No you're not" Charles had also begun to laugh, a genuinely happy laugh as though he was beginning to relax "And you can leave the wine alone as well"

"Too late"

-OG-


	19. Chapter 19

_**A/N: I know, it's been a while again and it's a bit on the long side, but I have kept away from the delete button as instructed ... although I did have to go back and clean it up a bit before posting – I didn't want to fall foul of the decency police. Thank you so much for your ongoing support, it means the world to me and is what keeps me going when I have my little crisis' of writer's brain paralysis ... not quite at the hea yet, we have Sam to sort out as well as Molly's job, or lack of it, and whatever Millie has been up to as well as Charles deciding his future ... so I hope you will stick with me and are not getting too bored with the family at The Barn.**_

Molly was brushing her teeth as if she was doing her best to get rid of some dead furry thing, which she wasn't but she wasn't paying attention to what she was doing, she was bloody miles away thinking about Sasha with her smug smirk and her shiny hair, she kept seeing the little cow who was just begging for someone to give her a throat punch. Not that it would actually make anything better for Charles, but it would make her feel a whole lot better, the cheap little tart deserved it. But there wasn't any point in wishing for something that you know isn't going to happen, and in Molly's experience people like Sasha very rarely get what they deserve, and anyway she'd been in the bathroom for bloody ages when she'd said she was just going to clean her teeth and hadn't even kissed him goodnight. He'd probably already be fast asleep after the day he'd had and she didn't want to wake him so would have to creep back, even though she wanted to hug him, not to have sex necessarily, although it would be nice, but she needed to make sure he knew she was going to be on his side no matter what. She wanted to just tell him again that she wouldn't go off on one no matter what happened next and that she didn't blame him for any of it.

But he was still exactly where she'd left him, he was just sitting on the edge of the bed with his hands dangling between his knees, and looking at the floor and thinking with the same worried frown on his face.

"Thought you'd be asleep"

"What? Sorry ... no ... I was waiting for you ... what on earth were you doing in there?"

"Nothin' ... told you, just cleaning me teeth"

"You must have the cleanest teeth in the world"

"You feeling any better?"

She decided to ignore his comment, she didn't want to tell him that she'd actually been brooding about bloody Sasha again and how much she hated her and how much she wished she could track her down and _hurt_ her.

"I'm fine, now can you please forget you're a medic for five fucking minutes and get into bed, it's late"

"Soorrrrry, I can't switch it off just like that"

"Sorry"

"Yeah whatever"

Molly knew he was pissed off with her fussing round him the way she had and that it was making him tetchy and impatient but she was now bloody angry at the way he'd spoken to her. Her sympathy was rapidly draining away and she wanted to yell and tell him to stop being shit to her, that she hadn't done anything, and anyway it didn't make a scrap of difference him telling her he was fine and that his headache had gone because she was almost sure he was lying. He was nearly as pale now as he had been when he'd first come home and was all heavy eyed and bleary looking although it did serve him right a bit for being a bloody martyr and refusing to let her get him anything for it. Instead he'd just kept saying it was a self-inflicted injury and was his own fault because he should have known better than to drink too much wine on an empty stomach but even though she knew he was probably right, there was still this big bit of her that was scared and it didn't matter that it was irrational and was her being stupidly over-anxious, headaches scared the bloody shit out of her. Not that she'd ever admit it even if she was asked outright. She'd never been able to forget Smurf saying he had a bit of a headache and then messing around and laughing with her one minute and dropping dead the next, and there'd been nothing she could do about it.

She pushed Charles' knees further apart and stood in between them without saying another word, then looped her hands round the back of his neck to tangle her fingers in the strands of hair as he clasped his hands together in the small of her back and pulled her loosely against him muttering "Sorry". To Molly the expression on his face made him look oddly vulnerable in a way that she'd never seen before, she was used to him always being _strong_ , always seeming invincible and in complete control of himself and everything around him, but this was a Charles she didn't know and she was scared. She badly wanted the old bossy Bossman back.

"It is gonna be okay you know ... everything will work out, you'll see ... don't worry" She gave him the most encouraging smile she could muster "'n I'm sorry if I was being a bit annoying"

"You're weren't, it was me and I'm sorry I shouldn't have taken it out on you ... and of course you're right, it's going to be fine" He made a valiant effort to grin "And you have nothing to be sorry for, Molly, you've done nothing wrong"

"Nor 'ave you"

Charles had been sitting on the edge of the bed waiting for Molly to come back and running his fingers over the back of his neck, then stroking the stubble on his chin as he briefly considered having a shave and dismissed the idea as requiring too much effort. He'd been trying to decide what the fuck he was going to say to HR that wouldn't make him sound like some clueless middle aged tosspot when he tried to persuade them he wasn't a sexual predator or some sort of sleazebag, bearing in mind that Sasha bloody Walters had almost certainly portrayed herself as a victim, although victim of what, he wasn't sure. He was tired and his imagination was working overtime but the more he mulled it over the more he kept coming back to face the inescapable truth that he was far from being as innocent as he'd like.

He'd never lied, had been telling the truth when he'd said he hadn't wanted anything to do with the sort of entanglement Sasha was offering on a plate, but he had been guilty of laughing a little bit too much with her, of being a bit too friendly and of teasing her and allowing the teasing to be mutual, and most of all he'd been guilty of ignoring the warning signs that had been staring him in the face. He'd been fucking blind to the danger, hadn't seen that it had the power to wreck everything he cared about, to not only fuck up his marriage and his family but his career as well because he hadn't got a shred of actual proof that he wasn't the one guilty of any sort of harassment. But it was going to be purely his word against hers, a twenty two year old kid against someone who was not only in his forties and old enough to know better but was her boss for fuck sake with all the implications of that, so how likely was it that anyone was going to believe it was her and not him? Not very was his guess.

Charles pulled Molly against him so that his face was buried between her neck and shoulder with his stubble rasping on her skin as he nestled close against her and she took a deep breath and inhaled his comfortingly familiar smell, that unique mixture of warm skin, of soap and shampoo and something indefinable that was Charles.

"Sorry, do I stink? I must do, it's been a long day"

"Nah, don't be daft you're alright ... gonna have stubble rash on me neck though aren't I?"

"I'll go and have a shave"

"Too late"

He whispered something incoherent into her neck as she stood there suddenly feeling as if she could quite happily fall asleep right where she was, standing up with his arms round her and that nothing had changed as far as she was concerned even if they had got a bit messed for a while. He was still Charles, the most important person in her world and it didn't matter that she was no bloody good at all the wifey stuff, that she could even fuck up a ready meal, and that sometimes she got so fed up with the house and the kids and not having a job that there were dead people with more energy and enthusiasm than her, but he loved her. He didn't want her to change, he loved her the way she was, they loved each other and none of this was his fault, any more than it was his fault that she got so lonely and pissed off when he wasn't around. She'd always known that about him right from when they met, he was always going to be going away and there was always going to be other girls around and she was never going to be able to change that, she just hadn't got to let it get to her the way this stuff with Sasha had. It was up to her to do something to change things for herself, not rely on him, she was the one who'd let her friendships drift because she'd felt she was boring, so it was up to her to start sorting it out.

"Meant what I said, it is gonna be okay"

His arms were still resting limply on her hips as he slowly unclasped his hands behind her back and moved to get into bed and for Molly it was like someone had ripped the duvet off on a winter night as she lost the comfort of his arms round her. But as soon as she got in her side he propped himself on one elbow and lifted his other arm to invite her to wriggle across and rest her head on his bicep, and although he hadn't exactly got his usual full-on smirk back on his face, he was smiling as he put his arm round her shoulders and that was enough for her. Charles heaved a deep sigh of relief as her warm softness nestled into him and he felt the hard knot of anxiety in the pit of his stomach start to unravel.

Despite what she'd said earlier, she could smell the faintest hint of sweat on his skin, but didn't want him to pull away from her and it wasn't unpleasant, it was just there as he pressed his lips to her forehead and rolled onto on his back. He pulled her arm across his waist and leaned over to flick off the bedside light and lay staring up at the ceiling in the dark and then closed his eyes to enjoy the feeling of comfort that came from her putting her head on his chest and sliding her leg over the top of his. Molly listened to the steady comforting beat of his heart beneath her ear and was soothed enough to be finding it hard to keep her eyes open when his voice rumbled deep in his chest.

"Are you tired?"

"Yeah ... a bit ... aren't you? You must be"

Charles didn't answer immediately and Molly stopped thinking about having to get up early or anything really except how much she wanted him to go back to being happy with his life as he turned towards her and ran his fingertips slowly down her side and cupped her bum to pull her harder against his side. He did nothing for a few ssecond waiting to see whether she was going to tell him to stop, that she was too tired, and then ran the tip of his finger lightly over her hip and down her thigh before sliding his hand under her leg and lifting it slightly against his groin so that she could feel how hard he was.

"Not tired then?" Molly giggled quietly and then rubbed the inside of her thigh against his erection and enjoyed the sound of his groan before turning her head slightly and kissing his chest.

"Nope ... not tired at all"

"Yeah so I see, funny that innit, all of a sudden I'm not either ..."

She turned her head to kiss his chest again and licked the faint saltiness off her lips. She wanted to to lick every inch of his skin and to run her hands over his back and feel the muscles bunch when she touched him, and she wanted more than anything to hold him as tightly as she could to make him feel better, to show him how much she'd hated it when they were fighting. It might only have been a few days in reality, but it felt like weeks and months to her since things between them had started going a bit shit, when she'd begun to be so horribly afraid she was losing him and had gone into panic mode because she didn't know how to stop it.

He rained kisses down on her face and neck, then stopped to look at her face while he used his thumb to slowly hook her hair back out of the way and ran his fingertips over her bottom lip, moving until his face was too close to hers for any eye contact and kissed her repeatedly, the kisses getting harder and deeper as she kissed him back. His breathing was harsh and erratic as he ran his fingers up her back and impatiently pulled her 'T' shirt off as she arched her back to press against him, and he was lost. All thoughts of taking his time, of taking things slowly and savouring every little moment disappeared in a sudden desperate hunger to touch her, to kiss her breasts and to hear her make little whimpers of pleasure when he put his mouth on them, to hear her murmur the little incoherent words of love when he kissed down her body. And he wanted to feel her react to him, to feel her body clench round him and to see her skin flush with the spasms of pleasure, he wanted very badly to lose himself in her.

-OG-

"Daddy..."

"Chloe ... "

Molly grinned at the way he said it, she hadn't heard him drawl a name like that for a lifetime, well not since he used to do it to her when he was about to wind her up about something, and she knew without even looking that he would be chewing on his bottom lip as he tried to control his smirk and sipped at his coffee. He still looked tired to her, but was definitely a whole lot happier this morning even though they hadn't had a lot of sleep and there wasn't enough time for him to have his usual slow breakfast because they'd slept late, not that either of them was regretting the lack of a good night's sleep. But he'd only had time for a bit of toast and of course his horrible coffee that still had the power to make her shudder, and only Livvie's outraged yells at being wide awake and still in her cot had stood between them sleeping on for bloody hours. They'd fallen asleep with his arms still tight round her, just like they used to and hadn't even had their usual bicker about whose turn it was to sleep in the wet patch and only the need to get up and see to the kids had dragged Molly out of the bed with her eyes glued shut while Charles had groaned and put his pillow over his head. But now Molly felt badly in need of a shower. She was minging, sweaty and sticky and a bit itchy and had stubble rash in places that was a bit sore and she definitely smelled of him. She was actually a tiny bit bothered that there might not be time for her to do something about it before she had to go and see Millie's teacher, something she still hadn't got around to sharing with him, and that the bloody woman would be able to tell that she smelled of sex. But it didn't matter, she couldn't make herself care that much, none of it mattered, she was happier this morning than she'd been for a very long time and no-one looking at Charles would know that he was still a bit anxious, that he was probably dreading the day ahead. That mask of his was firmly back in place.

"Did you know that there are seventy million ... no billion .. no, million rats in the world and that wherever you are and it doesn't matter if you're at home or anywhere, you are never more than fifteen feet from a rat?" Chloe scanned the kitchen floor with her eyes narrowed "That's like from here to the back door, there are so many of them, they're EVERYWHERE"

"Nope, I can't say I've actually given it a lot of thought... but I'm sure you're right"

"I am ... we did it in class... then we had to draw one for homework ... and did you know that rats can get through the tiniest little holes" Chloe demonstrated by making a miniscule circle with her thumb and forefinger "They can get everywhere and ... they eat everything and did you know that they have sex twelve times a day ... that's why there are so many of them"

"Lovely ..." He lowered his voice to a murmur "Lucky rats"

Molly could see his shoulders shaking as he spoke, but Chloe was fortunately far too busy to notice either his words or his mirth as she looked at her homework sheet that had more facts written about rats that she'd found on Molly's iPad the night before as part of her project. Marcus on the other hand was scanning the kitchen floor with a deeply worried expression on his face.

"Well, we 'aven't got any in here, so can we talk about something else please, I don't like rats"

Molly could still remember how she used to feel when she'd hear all these horrible scurrying noises and would just know they were there, she used to be terrified that one of them was going to run over her feet when her mum made her take the rubbish out to the big bins round the back of the flats when she was a kid. She'd always tried everything she could to get out of doing it, short of telling Belinda how scared of them she was, she would never have lived it down in her house.

"Anyway, Patches wouldn't let any rats come in here"

"Are you sure about that? It wouldn't surprise me if he took one look and hid behind you"

"Shut up" Molly pulled a face and tried to nod surrepticiously in Marcus' direction "You're not helping ... and that's not funny neither"

"Sorry ... hey, are you scared of them? You are ..." He took no notice of the quick warning shake of her head, she didn't want Marcus to know she was bleeding petrified of them, he had enough things to be scared of already without adding to his fears "Who'd have thought it, Dawsey afraid of some little furry creatures?"

"They're not furry and I'm not afraid of them ... but they're not exactly my favourite either ... so can we talk about something else?"

"I'd like one, I could keep it in a cage ... it can live in my bedroom"

"Nah it can't, not on your bloody life Millie ... not gonna happen"

"But that's not fair, I haven't got a pet and ..."

"Nah, and you 'ave, you've got Patches we all have, we share him, and you wouldn't like it anyway, they're horrible dirty things and they stink and you can't pick them up and cuddle them cos they bite and you have to wash your hands when you've touched them because they piddle on you and they have all these horrible diseases and you 'ave to clean their cages all the time to get rid of all the wee and the poo 'n that ... and I'm not doing it"

"Daddy can"

"Oh no he can't" Charles was no longer trying to hide the fact that he was laughing and put his head back to roar "I'm too busy for a start ..."

"Yeah right course you are" Molly was laughing with him although she was in deadly earnest, it didn't matter how much fuss Millie made, tantrum or no tantrum, they would get a pet rat over her dead body "But it don't matter cos it's not gonna 'appen .."

Charles took a quick look at his watch and sighed then kissed the girls on their heads and patted Marcus' curls before he moved to kiss her goodbye, lifting her up and hugging her hard before he smoothed her hair back to whisper in her ear "Coward"

"You can bloody shout ... now go on or you're gonna be late and don't forget to phone me after ... and it IS gonna be fine, so don't worry, you just need to give her your best smile and she'll be a puddle of jelly in no time ... that's what usually happens innit?"

"Very funny"

"What does that mean Mummy? People can't be a puddle of jelly, what about their bones and their blood and their teeth?"

Marcus sounded genuinely puzzled as Charles snorted "Go on then Mummy, you can explain because I've got no idea what you're talking about"

"Piss off ... " Charles waved one hand in the air but didn't turn round as he grabbed his keys and slung his jacket over his shoulder then opened the front door "And don't you bloody dare forget to ring me will you?"

-OG-

"Mr James?"

"Charles" He smiled what Molly had called his best smile and then stopped, suddenly self-conscious about it.

"Charles .." She extended her hand out to shake his "Phillipa ... please... " She gestured towards the visitor chair "Have a seat, now can I get you a coffee or a water or anything?"

"No thanks, I'm fine"

She wasn't at all what he'd been expecting, although what that was he wasn't entirely sure. His imagination had conjured up some incredibly sleek and sharp looking business woman who wouldn't take any shit from anyone, definitely not this small softly spoken and pretty girl with the nice smile who was about Molly's age and was heavily pregnant. She smiled and immediately thanked him for coming down to her office, gesturing at her baby bump as she apologised for not wanting to do the stairs, although, she added ominously, it was probably best not to set the rumour mill off and Charles' heart sank.

e


	20. Chapter 20

_**A/N: Thanks to everyone who is still with me , I really do appreciate all your reviews and feedback it's what keeps me going and before I go any further I want to say a massive thank you to Natalie who has been totally invaluable in her role as HR Specialist and Consultant – Oh and proof reader – so thanks Nat I couldn't have done it without you. There is just one more chapter or maybe two to go before this visit to The Barn is over, I am beginning to get withdrawal symptoms from not writing something new and have got one or two ideas bubbling away ... but first I have to get my blessed laptop fixed by Dell, it is playing me up and getting worse all the time, and no its not a case of a bad workman blaming etc., some of the function keys have stopped working altogether now and it's still under guarantee – it's probably knackered or as my old man the IT guru says it hasn't got a high enough duty cycle ... yes dear, if you say so ... whatever that is ...all I know is it's bloody annoying and I'm dreading being laptopless while they sort it ...**_

 _ **-OG-**_

"I expect you're wondering what this is about?"

She stopped shuffling bits of paper around and raised her eyebrows so that Charles wasn't sure suddenly whether it would be better to profess complete ignorance, he was a tad concerned that admitting he might have a pretty fair idea would make him look as guilty as hell of whatever fairy tale Sasha had been spinning. On the other hand he didn't want to look as clueless as Mansfield on a bad day.

"Indeed, I might be wrong but I'm assuming it's got something to do with Sasha Walters ... we had a ... difference of opinion yesterday ... but to be honest, apart from that, I've really got no idea ..." He paused before going on "But I can assure you that whatever you've been told, there really isn't ..."

"I'm going to stop you right there Charles" She raised her hand, and although her voice was still pleasantly friendly there was definitely a bit of a steely edge to it which added to his fear that she might have already made up her mind that whatever bloody Sasha had told her was the truth.

"You're right of course, this is about Sasha" She looked down at the file that she'd flicked open and extracted a piece of paper "I'm not sure whether you know about her coming to see me yesterday and ..." She shook her head obviously thinking back to her meeting the day before "She was pretty distressed" She looked down at the piece of paper again "And yes, she did mention that the two of you had some sort of altercation" Charles inclined his head but said nothing, that was definitely one way of describing what had gone on "But that wasn't what she actually came to see me about, it was the reason that she was so upset, but it was actually the final straw as far as she was concerned" She paused "She came to report ... well, she made some _very_ serious allegations"

Philippa concentrated on the file in front of her and on the pen she was tapping repeatedly on top of it, something that was irritating the fuck out of him as he sat there longing to yell at her to fucking stop doing it.

"I'm sure I don't have to tell you that there are _procedures_ we're required to follow in this sort of ... umm ... _situation_..." She paused and looked across at him before raising her eyebrows again to check he was following what she was saying and Charles nodded almost holding his breath and praying for Lady Luck as he waited for her to go on "Obviously in the circumstances we'll have to have an internal investigation ... it would be impossible for us to just ignore allegations of this type, nor would we want to" She paused again and looked at him "We have to be absolutely sure we're being fair to everyone and that we don't pre-judge anything or ... anybody ..."

"Indeed" Charles was longing to tell her not to be so bloody patronising, that he wasn't stupid "So what happens now? I presume someone is going to tell me exactly what I'm accused of and then I'll be given an opportunity to put the record straight"

"Of course ... so ... Okay ... now, Sasha has given us a statement outlining things from her point of view ... she's detailed her grievances and ... told us about your relationship with her and now we need you to give us a statement ... "

"Can I read what she's said?"

"No, I'm afraid that won't be possible at this stage ... and ... I'm sorry ... " She took a deep breath and caught her bottom lip in her teeth, and he felt a sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach. There was really no need for her to carry on and tell him what was coming next, he'd spent the whole of the previous day listening to various people droning on and on about the rules and the regulations and the potential penalties for those stupid enough to get themselves caught up in this sort of shit. He already knew what she was going to say.

"Normally the CEO would be here to talk you through this but I'm afraid events got in the way and he's unavailable, he's been summoned to appear ... well, that's immaterial but I did manage to get a few minutes with him to go over this, run it by him, fairly informally of course, but he's agreed it's probably best for you to be suspended while we look into it ... it's just a temporary measure I'm sure ... but we do have to be seen to be taking this very seriously ... especially in the light of recent events"

To Charles it sounded as if she was parroting the words of their CEO, a decent enough boss who mainly left him alone to get on with things, but one who was very given to making grandiose statements and using very clichéd phrases, a man who'd never been known to use one word when ten would be better.

"Not much I can say then, is there? Although I have to say I have no idea what this relationship is that she's talking about, the only relationship I have with Sasha Walters is a working relationship, she's my assistant, nothing more, and if she says it was anything more than that, it's all in her imagination ... which by the way was what our _altercation_ was about" He paused and shook his head as he thought about what he wanted to say "And I cannot imagine what recent events have got to do with anything, except for putting ideas in her head ... still, that's not your problem" He swallowed hard "And Sasha, has she been suspended? ... No of course not" He gave a hollow mirthless little laugh "She's the victim here isn't she? Or that's what she'd have you believe, so I presume she's free to carry on spreading this ...whatever rubbish it is she's spreading to anyone who is prepared to listen to her?"

Philippa started flicking through the papers on her desk again as if she was looking for something rather than looking directly at him.

"She's opted to take a few days leave" She took a deep breath and looked directly at him obviously on more comfortable ground "Now, I've already explained to her and I have to explain the same thing to you, that none of this is to be discussed outside this office, and that also applies to putting anything on social media ... it would be treated as gross misconduct and ... well, I'm sure I don't need to tell you what the outcome of that would be"

"Nope"

Charles wished he had her faith that the whole bloody thing wouldn't be tweeted or end up on Facebook by teatime, they'd have to be incredibly naive to believe that something like this would remain a secret, especially as she'd put it, _in the light of recent events._ He knew without a shadow of a doubt, and he was pretty sure she did as well, that it would spread like fucking wildfire and there were an awful lot of people in the building who'd have no qualms whatsoever about making it public.

"So how long before this all gets sorted out?"

"Obviously we'll be looking to resolve it as quickly as we can but in a situation like this where we literally have one person's word against another, and I'm guessing I'm right in assuming that that's what we've got here?" She paused and waited for him to nod "We'll be asking the team in the office and probably those out in the field as well ... for their ... feedback, we need to establish whether there's any substance at all to these allegations ... and in my experience that can take some time because people are often very reluctant to get involved ... but having said all that, I hope it won't take too long, a few days maybe, a week, and then we'll take it from there ... ... we all know delays are ... undesirable ... so, as I've said we'll do our absolute best to resolve this as quickly as we possibly can"

She looked up at him with a smile that he translated as loaded with fake concern "I am sorry about all this Charles, but you do understand, don't you, that none of it is personal?"

"Yup"

He knew that years of practice meant he was successfully controlling his expression, that his best poker face was disguising the fact that he was seething, that something that had started out as a trivial pin prick of irritation had somehow blown up into something of catastrophic proportions and he couldn't help the tiny nugget of fear that was niggling away at him that she believed every word Sasha had told her. And if she believed it, then it was likely that everyone else would as well. Logically he knew he was being unfair, she hadn't taken one side or the other and none of it was her fault, it was purely down to him, he should never have let it get to this, but that was being wise after the event, as Beck always called it, and it wasn't any help at all in the circumstances.

It wasn't as though he hadn't seen it coming, he'd known almost from the moment Sasha had flounced out of his office and slammed the door what the likely outcome would be, but that hadn't stopped the whole thing feeling like a slap in the face. It took almost an hour before he calmed down enough to stop wanting to kick something, or someone and told himself that as soon as the so-called witness statements were in, the whole thing would get sorted out. After all he hadn't actually done anything, hadn't stepped over the line, not once, and if there was any justice in the world, people would remember the way they'd sniggered when she stood too close to him and the sideways looks when she'd been doing her best to flirt, and they'd remember the way he always moved away. Most of all he was praying that HR would ask the right people. But nothing took away from the fact that it would be far easier to defend himself if he knew exactly what the fucking little bitch had accused him of. He could take a wild guess, but how the fuck could he be expected to come up with a detailed rebuttal when he didn't know what she'd been saying about him, or even the broad gist of it. It wasn't that he blamed HR exactly, he knew all about having to obey rules and follow protocols and procedures to the letter whether you agreed with them or not, and there'd been a number of high profile cases on the news recently when he'd heard someone say they didn't actually know what they were accused of, a couple of politicians and a celebrity or two. At the time he, probably like the other 99.9% of the population, had shrugged his shoulders in disbelief and said that they must know, how could they not? Now he knew better.

-OG-

There was nothing Molly hated more than going into school, except for maybe going into school when she was scruffy and worried about smelling ripe, a minger with hair that badly needed a wash. She knew it was pathetic but she couldn't help that bloody teachers always made her feel like she was ten all over again and in all sorts of bother and she hadn't had time for a proper shower let alone to put any lippie on, had only had a quick lick and a promise as Nan would call it so was desperate to get home and get in a nice deep bath with some Radox to help with the ache in her thighs and her back and every other bloody place that was hurting. She had aches in muscles she'd forgotten she'd got.

The girls had been getting very loud and worked up about where the rats were possibly hiding themselves at The Barn, and how they were going to try and catch one and had debated whether a big cardboard box would be enough to keep it in because they hadn't got a cage, and then whether white rats were better than brown ones. She knew she should just ignore them because bitter experience told her that telling them to shut up wouldn't do any good, it would just make them giggle and do it all the more in those loud whispers that really got up her nose, and anyway it didn't actually matter whether they were white, brown, green or sky blue bloody pink, there was no way on earth they were getting a rat. That was all she had to keep saying to them, but instead she ended up yelling so that Millie was all red-faced and furious and was muttering under her breath and giving Molly dirty looks as though she could kill her, so that the teacher was bound to take one look and decide that whatever Mills had been up to was a result of her having a crap mum.

But Miss Levvie Whatsits was busy talking to someone else so Molly was left standing around like a spare prick at a wedding as Fingers used to say. She was dead tempted to make noises about coming back at home time and then doing a runner, but that would mean bringing them all with her which would be even more of a pain in the arse, so she opted to wait for the other mum to finish talking. She was seriously beginning to get on her tits, standing there laughing with the teacher as if she'd got all day while Molly was waiting, and she had this bleeding annoying laugh that sounded as if she was faking it, so that Molly wanted to go over and interrupt and tell her to get a bleeding move on, that she had things to do.

She checked her watch for the five millionth time as she hitched Livvie to her other hip and walked back to the car, then switched her phone back on, but there was no messages. It was going to be a bloody long morning waiting for him to call and was going to be an even longer day thinking about what she was going to say to Millie when she got her home about telling bloody lies to her teacher and getting her mum into bother. Apparently she'd told them Molly wouldn't let her have any breakfast the day before because they were late and she'd sent her to school starving. The little ratbag seemed to have forgotten that she was having a bleeding tantrum at the time and had thrown most of her coco-pops on the floor and had then got the serious sulks because she wanted pancakes when the others were already waiting in the car. And apparently it hadn't been the first time she'd been cruel, she'd made a habit of not giving her anything to eat according to Millie so that Molly felt lucky the school hadn't called Social Services.

The teacher had been a bit embarrassed when Molly had finished putting her straight and had gone all nice as she told her what a lovely little girl Millie was, how bright she was but that maybe she had a bit too much imagination, but how good she'd been when she'd done a little speech to the class about what her dad did for a job and how proud she was of him. Only trouble was she'd told them he was away rescuing big cats in Africa, so that Molly couldn't wait to tell Charles about his change of career.

-OG-

"WHAT? They've SACKED you? But that's not bleeding fair, is it? They can't do that, you 'aven't done anything"

"Well no, not sacked exactly ... they've suspended me while they ask everyone whether I'm some sort of sleazeball" He snorted a laugh down his nose, obviously not finding any of it in the least bit funny "And I've got to give them a written statement telling them my side of things, but I don't know what crock of shit she's been telling them, they wouldn't tell me, so I'm not even sure what I'm supposed to tell them about"

"Easy ... just tell them the little tramp is living in cloud cuckoo land and that she kept on coming on to you, waving her knickers in the air and then ringing you all the time when you was at home ... and then she went around making stuff up, telling people you'd shagged her when you 'adn't ... and then got her knickers in a knot when you found out and told her to pack it in, tell them she's a lying little trollop ...just something like that ... "

"Lovely ... very nicely put Mrs James, I think I'll get you to do it for me ..."

"No chance, mate, I'm no good at that sort of shit ..."

"Sounded pretty good to me"

"You're biased ... so what happens next?"

"What, after they've asked everyone if I'm some sort of dirty old man who can't keep his hands to himself or keep it in his trousers?"

"Well yeah, that ... but you know, that's actually alright innit? People will tell the truth and then they'll see they've got it wrong and that it's her, not you"

"Yup ... well, I bloody hope so ... that's if they don't all decide to gang up on me"

"Course they won't, why would they? Come on, don't worry it'll be alright ... you'll see"

Molly was trying her best to sound reassuring but then realised she might sound as though she wasn't taking it seriously, which wasn't true. She was actually crapping herself at the thought of what might happen if things didn't go right.

"I wish I had your faith"

"You'll see, I know I'm right, aren't I always? But what I actually meant was, what 'bout after? Once they've said they're sorry and kicked her arse for her, are you gonna stop there or are you maybe gonna look for something else that you'll like better? Somewhere where they don't treat you like shit"

"Tempting as that sounds, I'm not sure I can just do that ... I'd love to ... but I'm not sure what I would do instead ..."

"There's plenty of other things out there, there's lots of groups who'd be bloody lucky to get you ... or you can always get a job rescuing big cats, you know lions and tigers 'n that, in Africa"

"What?"

"It's what Millie told her teacher you do for a job"

"Where the fuck did she get that from? I hope you told them that the nearest I've got to a big cat is a fucking safari park"

"That's better"

"What is?"

"You're laughing"

-OG-


	21. Chapter 21

_**A/N: Penultimate chapter of this visit to my favourite family, am waiting for the new series before I do anything with the outlines I have ready – bit scared that they might decide to split my favourite couple up which would make it hard to write about them – still, fingers crossed – thank you for your reviews and feedback, I can't tell you how important it is when you are sitting in front of a screen trying to put into words what you see in your mind's eye, it's what tells me that people out there haven't lost interest and I also want to thank Natalie , not only for her help with the HR stuff but also for suggesting I incorporate the Disney tiara. My laptop has now decided to let me use the delete button only occasionally – and the same thing for the shift for capitals – although it still won't let me use the movement cursors – so have to be very careful when I edit, so please forgive any little errors – my new one should be here next week – can't wait.**_

 _ **-OG-**_

"Millie, listen to me please" Charles held her by the tops of her arms and shook her gently "Come on you need to look at me, now ... you know you were wrong to tell lies to your teacher don't you? You shouldn't have said Mummy didn't let you have any breakfast, it wasn't true and you know that's not what happened, Mummy gave you your breakfast but you were being really silly so you didn't eat it did you?"

"I'm sorry, Daddy, I forgot ..."

"I don't think that's true either, Millie ... but don't do it again and now I think you'd better go and say you're sorry to Mummy, don't you?"

Charles decided not to mention his very short career as a lion tamer or maybe a big game hunter or whatever it was Millie had decided he'd been doing out in Kenya, he wasn't sure he could carry off the necessary look when he wanted to laugh and hug her and when she already looked thoroughly woebegone. She began to sob loudly as she wheeled away from him and ran full pelt into the sitting room to throw herself full length on the floor and bawl loudly.

"See you told her then?" Molly looked at Millie's recumbent form " What did you say?"

"Told her she had to apologise to you"

"Oh well that'd do it ... did you tell her not to make up shit about other stuff.. you know, your job 'n that?"

"Nope ... well, she might have a point ... I could well be looking for a new job this time next week, I might have to see if there are any openings for lion tamers"

"Very funny ... bloody hilarious ... did you send your statement off to whatsitsface?"

"Yup, not sure it's as eloquent as yours though ... is she okay?" He jerked his head to indicate Millie who was still sobbing loudly as she lay prostrate on the floor "I didn't mean to make her cry"

"She's not ...she's bleeding faking it ... amateur" Molly shook her head at him and giggled as Millie redoubled her efforts to sound as though her heart was broken "Come on, stop making that horrible racket and you and me can get some tea ready before Social Services pitch up at the door"

"What are Social Skervishes?"

"No-one" Molly put out a hand out to pull Millie to her feet and then hugged her "Nothing you need to worry about anyway, come on" As soon as the words Social Services had left her mouth she was sorry she'd said it. She could still remember how horribly scared she used to be when Dave used to threaten her with the dreaded Social coming to take her into care when he was mad at her for something "Daddy's gotta ring Sam's mummy in a minute and he won't be able to hear anything will he if you're still in here making all that noise?"

"Oh Christ ... thanks for reminding me ... I was doing my best to try and forget"

"No you weren't" Molly stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek and giggled "Go on, be a brave soldier and get it over with and Mills and I'll go and get the tea"

"Is Daddy still cross with me?" Millie's eyes were brimming with real tears and her bottom lip was quivering as Molly picked her up and hugged her so that Millie wound her arms round her neck and pushed her hair to one side to stage-whisper loudly against her ear "I'm sorry Mummy ... why has Daddy got to be brave?"

"Good girl ... and Daddy is not cross with you ... 'n you know Daddy is always brave, I was just messing"

"Is he? I hadn't noticed" Charles snorted a laugh and pulled a face then ruffled Millie's curls where they were escaping from her unevenly unravelling plaits and kissed the top of her head before he checked around for the phone "I'd forgotten about this when I said the day couldn't possibly get much worse"

It felt weird to Molly him being home at that time on a school day, although none of the kids seemed to see anything odd at all in him collecting them from school, or if they had, they hadn't said anything, they hadn't even asked what he was doing at home. They'd just been thrilled to see him, although Molly wasn't sure that Millie was quite so thrilled now. To Molly he seemed restless, as if he felt like he couldn't quite decide what to with himself which she could well understand, normally he'd have all these hundreds of things on the go at the same time so that he was always having to sort stuff and juggle stuff or worry about how they were going to sort it and it was hard for him to just switch off from that, apart from anything else it left him with too much time to think about what had happened. He'd gone a bit quiet and had the spent bloody ages writing an e-mail to the HR woman, and had then tweaked it and added bits and had then taken them out again and the more he did it, the angrier she'd got. How bloody dare they treat him like this when he hadn't done anything wrong?

-OG-

Now that Millie had done her usual 180 degree turn and had decided to stop being poor Little Orphan Annie who was being cruelly mistreated in favour of being a little angel she'd perched her bum on a stool in the kitchen and was helping Molly grate cheese for a pizza, while Patches sat as near as he could to catch any bits that fell on the floor. She was chattering nineteen to the dozen as handfuls of cheese disappeared down her throat whenever she thought Molly wasn't watching and quite a bit fell accidentally on purpose to where Patches was lurking. Molly didn't really notice quite what she was up to, not that she'd have minded her eating it as such but she would have stopped her feeding it wholesale to the dog because it gave him terrible smelly farts, so that they would be in for a really stinky evening, but she was distracted and was only half paying attention to some complicated tale of woe of who did what to who in the playground. She was actually desperately trying to hear what Charles was saying to Rebecca only he didn't appear to be saying a whole lot, which was a bit of a worry. She didn't expect him to tell her Royal bleeding Highness what was going on with him, well, she knew he wouldn't do that, but she was hoping to hear him tell her that there was no way he was going to force Sammie back to school. That their little boy was almost a grown up and that he was old enough to make up his own mind or almost, and was definitely too old to be dragged there kicking and screaming and if that was what she wanted she was welcome to come and do it herself.

"Fucking bitch"

She'd waited until it had all gone quiet for a bit in the sitting room and she couldn't hear him talking anymore at all before she'd hitched Livvie further up on her hip and put her head round the door to where he was sitting on the sofa turning the phone round and round in his hands and looking thoroughly pissed off.

"Didn't go well then? What did she say?"

"Oh you know, the usual, what a crap father I am, how useless I am and how different it would be if I did things her way and ... how if I'd listened to her this wouldn't be happening and so on ... and on and on ... she really is a pain in the backside"

"Yeah, but she's always talked a load of old bollocks 'asn't she? There's nothing different 'n she don't know what she's talking about so just ignore her ... anyway, what's she's gonna do about it, apart from yell at you?"

"Reckons she's coming over to sort it out"

"What _here, she's coming here?"_ Charles looked at the horrified expression on her face and snorted a laugh.

"No ... she'll probably go and stay with Mum ... I didn't offer and she didn't ask but Royal Crescent is much more her bag than this place ... that's if she even gets as far as getting on a fucking plane ... I told her she'd be wasting her bloody time but you know Rebecca, always has to have her own way and get the last word" He ran his hand over the back of his neck and then held out his arms to take Livvie as the baby started to whinge and wriggle "Here... "

"She's tired but don't let her go to sleep will you otherwise we'll be up all bleeding night ... " Molly paused and thought for a moment "You'd better not tell your mum anything about ... well, anything ... had you, else she'll tell her won't she?"

"Oh yeah, without a shadow of a doubt"

Molly bit her bottom lip "Probably best not to say anything to anyone ... it'll all be over in a day or two anyway, so no point is there and me Nan won't have to put a contract out on anyone"

"She'll probably put a contract out on me"

He raised his eyebrow at her and she could almost see what was going through his head, that he thought she'd be ashamed if people found out what was happening.

"Nah, she wouldn't, and I didn't mean it like that ... you know I didn't... just thought you wouldn't want everyone to be ... going on about it all the time talking behind your back and ringing you up 'n that, wanting you to tell them all about everything and giving you their opinions on what to do"

What she really wanted to do was to tell him to go and hoick Sammie off of that computer of his and ask him why he didn't want to go back to that school, but much as she wanted to say something she couldn't say a word about how unhappy he'd been there or what had made him feel like that, she couldn't tell Charles about the bullying or what it was all about because she'd promised Sam she wouldn't say and it was up to him if he wanted to tell his dad. If she broke her promise and told Charles any of it at all he'd go and say something to Sam and that would put the kibosh on Sam ever telling her anything ever again, and anyway she couldn't be sure that what she suspected was even true. She might well be adding 2 and 2 and making 22, she just didn't know.

"Oh bollocks"

She might of known that the two of them were going to be fast asleep by the time she got back from supervising pizza eating and stopping Millie from crowing too loudly about how she'd helped and yelling at Sam to get himself downstairs if he wanted any otherwise there wouldn't be any left and went to get Livvie to put her to bed, well, she supposed she had known, a bit. Charles had looked shattered when he'd got off the phone and he'd had a couple of really shit days and then they hadn't had a whole lot of sleep the night before so she wasn't surprised that he was stretched out the length of the sofa with his head on one arm and his feet dangling over the other with Livvie sleeping peacefully sprawled across his chest. Her head was tucked under his chin and her plump little bum was stuck in the air with his hand under it which made Molly's heart melt. His face looked like all the worry lines had been ironed away so that he looked like the younger Charles that she could remember holding Chloe like that for hours when she was sleeping on him but it seemed like such a bloody long time ago now since he'd had the time, they were always so fucking busy. And this was all such total shit, it was so bloody unfair and he didn't deserve any of it, but she also didn't know quite what she could do to make it better the way she wanted.

-OG-

"So have you got any questions?"

"Nah, you're alright"

Molly didn't know quite what to say to him, she couldn't believe that after all the fuss she'd kicked up about wanting to go back to work, about finding someone suitable to look after the kids who wasn't going to bankrupt them, that she was now sitting across the desk from some nerdy little bloke in a horrible green sweater who'd spent most of the last half hour looking at his computer and the rest talking to her tits about a job that she no longer wanted. It wasn't even the job she'd rung them up about in the first place, this wasn't about a CMT job with flexible schedules and hours that she could choose, this was loads of hours, far more than she wanted, sitting behind a desk in the office helping this little gnome do the admin or something like that. It was something she wasn't qualified for and that she'd have to be bloody desperate to even consider, sitting behind a desk for hours while someone else looked out for the kids would do her head in and working with this bloke wasn't exactly her idea of fun either. He gave her the willies.

"Sorry ... but I thought ... I really thought this job was like I had before ... a CMT? ... I'm really sorry, but I don't think I can manage all them hours, not with the kids 'n that"

"Well, I must say that's very disappointing ... and we don't actually have a vacancy for a CMT at the moment ...we're fully staffed ...but we'll certainly keep you in mind if things change"

"Right, okay ... well thanks anyway"

He didn't exactly sound devastated, but then she was pretty sure she wouldn't have got the job anyway, and she wasn't devastated either. She'd thought she'd be gutted if she didn't get it, as disappointed as she'd been when they hadn't texted her when they said they were going to, but all she felt as she drove out of the car park was relief. She still wanted to go back to work, not that there was any chance of her hearing from them any time soon, if ever, she'd almost certainly burned her bridges as far as being a CMT there was concerned and anyway she didn't want to work with him. He probably wouldn't recognise her face but he would almost certainly recognise her tits, he'd spent enough time looking at them. Wanker.

And anyway there was always the chance that her and Charles would have to sell The Barn and move somewhere else if things didn't work out, she knew it was all still up in the air even though they'd stopped talking about it now. They'd talked it to death for the first couple of days, but had slowly run out of things to say now it was almost a week and although Charles was his usual self in front of the kids, well near enough, he was getting increasingly tetchy and irritable when it was just her so that she felt as if she was treading on eggshells round him. He reminded her of what he used to be like all those years ago in Afghan before, well, before anything and he kept taking himself off for long runs, which she had a horrible suspicion was him doing his best to avoid her.

-OG-

"Hello ..." Molly looked at the tableau in front of her and giggled "What's going on here?"

Charles was sitting on the sofa with a bright pink feather boa tied round his neck which was shedding feathers all over the place which he kept blowing away from his mouth, and had a selection of sparkly slides and grips in his hair which Millie was attempting to brush with Livvie's baby brush as she tried to get her plastic Disney Tiara to stay put on his curls.

"Hey ..." Charles looked over and grinned, the first really wide _Charles_ grin she'd seen for a while "What do you mean, what's going on? The girls are just giving me a bit of a makeover" He flapped his fingers in the air in her direction and laughed when she raised her eyebrows at his hands. His nails were plastered in so much red nail polish that it looked like they were dripping in blood, for all the world as if he'd cut the tips of his fingers off.

"Nice colour ... I had one like that ... you'd better 'ope I've got some remover somewhere to get it off"

"Mummy ... " Chloe wailed "Don't be mean, you can't take it off, we've just finished doing them and Daddy said they were lovely"

"Indeed they are and we didn't think you'd mind sharing ... it's for a good cause"

"What is?" Molly had a serious attack of the giggles as Millie put her hands on his cheeks and tugged his head round so that he was looking at her while she made some fine adjustments to the tiara that was perched on his curls "Hang on, don't move, let me get my phone"

"No ... no bloody way ... you are not taking pictures to put on facebook ... over my dead body"

"What you don't want to show off your feminine side? The lads would love it"

"The lads are not going to see it ... how did you get on?"

"Umm .. a bit shit actually, they didn't want a CMT ... they just wanted someone to sit in the office and be nice to a little turd in a green jumper while he was playing with his computer ..."

Charles threw his head back and laughed "I think you mean a nerd"

"Nah I don't ... I meant what I said"

"So you didn't like him much then?"

"Dunno what gave you that idea" Molly giggled "I think I might have to think again ... where are the boys?"

"Sam has taken Patches for a walk, and Marcus has gone with him, I think they were worried that it was going to be their turn next for a makeover" He paused and smiled then rolled his tongue round in his mouth "I've got news ... they rang about an hour ago, want me to go in tomorrow for a meeting"

"What to see that Philippa? How did she sound, did she say anything, you know, about the statements or about what's happening or what's gonna happen next, or I dunno, anything?"

"No, nothing and it wasn't Philippa, it was someone called Claire and she didn't really sound _anything_ at all _,_ didn't say anything much either, just that they wanted me to come in for a meeting"

"Can I come with you?"

"Much as I'd like to say yes ..." He bit his bottom lip and then grinned "I'm not sure it would be the best idea for you to take Sasha round the back of the building and sort her out ... maybe if things don't go well, I'll let you ... in fact I'll probably help you"

"It's gonna be okay, you'll see ... and then all you've gotta do is make up your mind whether you're gonna stay there or whether you're gonna tell them where they can stick their job"

i

/

"

"Yeah, I know ... but you still gotta get up and stop doing that ...


	22. Chapter 22

_**A/N: As you know this is the last chapter for this visit to the Barn, but I will be going back there later because I know Sam has still to be sorted out but in real life problems don't just get sorted by the wave of a magic wand so it's all over by teatime and I promise I'll bring it to a conclusion even if I do it as a one-shot ..Thank you so much to everyone who has followed and has reviewed after every chapter, I can't tell you what the reviews mean to me ... thank you again xx**_

-OG-

Neither of them slept well. Charles was restless as hell and kept turning over and shifting his feet about so that he was annoying her and Molly's brain wouldn't let her switch off enough to let her sleep at all. The harder she tried the more elusive sleep got even though she was tired to the point of wanting to cry and no matter what she tried, nothing helped. Her pillow felt like a sandbag so she had to keep turning it over which wasn't exactly helping, especially when she was trying to be careful not to disturb him, there was no point in both of them lying there awake and worrying. And every time she lifted herself up on her elbow and looked over at the clock on his side of the bed she got more desperate thinking about how shit she was going to feel in a few hours when Livvie decided the night was over.

To Molly it was a bit like those nights before he was deployed somewhere, when she was a mixture of dead proud of him and scared shitless at the same time, when she'd be dreading the morning because he'd have to leave so she'd spend hours not being able to sleep and just watching his face while he slept, sort of storing it up for when he wasn't there. Not that this was the same of course, he wasn't in any danger of getting injured or worse and whatever happened he would come home the following night and sleep in the bed next to her, but it still felt like he was in danger somehow, that his whole life could well go crashing down the shitter in a couple of hours and that there was sod-all either of them could do about it.

They'd spent hours not talking about what was waiting for him in the morning even though it was the elephant in the room, but had talked instead about the conspicuous absence of 'mother of the year' who had still to put in any sort of appearance or even to break the deafening silence that had followed Charles' phone call so they still had no clue what she was bloody intending doing, and not even Sam had heard a dicky bird from her in over a week. Molly reckoned that she was off sulking somewhere and that they should just ignore her because she was waiting for someone to call her up and beg her to tell them if she was okay and then to crawl up her bum trying to keep the peace and make everything right, but Charles had said it just made him sad to think that someone he used to _love_ as much as he'd loved her once upon a time and who was Sam's mum for fuck sake, was determined to turn herself into the bloody enemy and that if she was playing some stupid game he'd never forgive her. That it was Sam's life they were talking about, it wasn't about winning some stupid battle over who knew best how to be a half decent parent to him. Molly came within a whisker of telling him, she hated keeping secrets from him, especially about Sam and with the way things stood but instead settled for promising herself that whatever happened the following day she was going to sit Sam down and have another go at persuading him to tell his dad.

"When this is over, when everything's sorted out, what do you say to going away for a few days, just us if we can get someone to look after the kids for a bit ... maybe Bashira or ... perhaps Nan, or ideally both of them, and Sam will be here as well, because I ...know you won't want Mum to do it"

"Patches would never forgive us if Penny looked after him ... can we afford it?"

"Nope"

"Right ... so it's asking Nan's mate for a lend of her caravan in Skeggie then?" Molly giggled as Charles gave a little snort of amusement.

"What the one with the tea leaves and the palm reading? Mystic Maggot or whatever her bloody name is, that strange little person who keeps wanting to read my palm and tell me my future, that one?"

"Yeah that one, and her name's Maggie not maggot, and the only reason she wants to read your palm is so that she can hold your hand as you very well know ... she can't really read palms or any of that shit, she's just conning people ..."

"I know, but she still scares me to death ... and I wasn't actually thinking of Skegness, I was thinking more of somewhere warm where you can wear your bikini all day and make an old man very happy"

"I didn't know you was thinking of taking an old man with us"

"Ha Ha, hilarious ... but oh so true" He raised his eyebrows and smirked, then leaned over to kiss the tip of her nose "It would be nice to get away for a bit though wouldn't it? Not as far as Garda maybe, but just for a few days to get a bit of sun, just you and me now that you're not going to be charging about saving people from their own stupidity"

"Yeah it would be nice even if we have to take the kids with us ... now please could you shut up about me fucking up? I feel bad enough about it already without you going on about it"

"You didn't you know, you just decided not to do something that wasn't right for you"

"I did, didn't I?"

"Yup ... and that's not fucking up is it?"

"Nah ... s'pose not, feels a bit like it though"

"Well it's not"

They'd talked about what she could do instead now that she wasn't going back to where she'd worked before and Charles had been satisfying livid when she'd told him about the little green gnome interviewing her tits and how she'd begun to think he was looking at porn on his computer when she was sitting in front of him because he sure as hell wasn't looking at her face. Charles made a lot of noises about complaining to someone about him and wanting to go and see him to sort him out, until she pointed out that he wouldn't let her go and hit Sasha and it was near enough the same thing. And anyway he didn't need to worry about her working with creeps like him because she could eat blokes like that before breakfast any day and twice on Sundays.

-OG-

"Charles?" He nodded and put out a hand to shake the one she held out in his direction "Claire Wilson ... but please call me Claire ... I'm Head of Human Resources"

"Claire"

He nodded but kept his dead pan Captain Stern Face expression firmly in place despite her motherly smile, he couldn't see anything to smile about and anyway was exceedingly wary of judging by appearances. Philippa had looked young and friendly and had a lovely smile and a gentle manner, in fact she'd reminded him of Molly in lots of ways, but like Molly she'd turned out to have a core of steel although Philippa had also turned out to be implacable in her resolve to follow the rules to the letter. He still felt a deep sense at the injustice of her not allowing him to say anything in his own defence, that she simply hadn't wanted to listen to him and had hidden behind the rules because she'd already made up her mind. Claire was the complete opposite in just about every way, she was almost brusque in her professional manner, her voice was almost clipped and she was small and fair and slightly on the plump side with hair that was beginning to go grey and was more than a tad untidy as if she had a habit of running her hands through it. She was near enough the same age as him maybe a tad older and if she reminded him of anyone she reminded him vaguely of Belinda, although he doubted she was as basically _kind_ as Molly's mum somehow.

"No Philippa today?"

"Umm no ... in the circumstances the CEO thought it best I take over ... and before I go any further I'd really like to say how sorry I am about all of this"

Fuck. An ice cold drench of fear hit him like a sledgehammer so that he couldn't actually hear what she was saying, he could see her lips moving and knew that she was picking up the dreaded statements and looking at them as she spoke but all he could hear was the roaring in his ears. He knew she wouldn't be able to tell by looking at him how he was feeling, his face would be impassive, he'd had years of practice of hiding his feelings behind a mask but it was his worst fucking nightmare come true. He was going to be accused of gross misconduct and was going to lose everything because some stupid little bitch had decided to lie through her fucking teeth to punish him for not wanting to hop into bed with her. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

"Sorry Claire ... I didn't quite catch what it was you said, can you just run through that again for me?"

"I said, you might like to read these ... they're the statements from your team ... they're anonymous but you'll see that they're almost unanimous in their support for you and a lot of the them have gone out of their way to emphasise just how well you are regarded by the team, and that nothing they've seen support any of the ... allegations"

"What?"

"Putting it simply these statements make it plain that as far as everyone else is concerned, there is no truth at all in what Sasha is saying happened, they've never seen anything that would support her version of the facts and that she appears to have either been very mistaken or was for some reason making false allegations" She smiled her motherly smile again and this time he reciprocated, relief was flooding through him so that he felt like it was pouring out of every pore "And with hindsight, I think, well the CEO thinks, that we may have been slightly over-zealous in the way we dealt with this in the first place, although in the light of recent events that was somewhat _understandable_ ... we had to be seen to be taking what she said seriously ... however ..." She shrugged.

"Indeed"

She took a deep breath and then smiled again and Charles realised she was hoping he wasn't about to go off on one as Molly would say "We've already had a meeting with Sasha and I've explained that we've investigated everything very thoroughly and haven't found anything to support any of her complaints, that in fact we found no evidence whatsoever to justify any further action ... and that as far as we're concerned the matter has been dealt with and is now closed ... although there is some evidence of ... questionable behaviour on her part ... but she has got five days to appeal the findings"

"So it's not over then?"

"I think you'll find that it is ... she's been told that the very least she can expect is a final written warning about her future conduct and that she has to be exceedingly careful ... but, well, you know that we really can't tolerate someone making false allegations ...however, it's up to you what happens now"

"What are you asking me to do here Claire? Are you asking me if I'm prepared to have her back as my assistant... because if that _is_ what you're asking then the answer would have to be no ..." He wanted to shout that this was all very controlled and civilised, but none of them had the first idea of just how much damage this had threatened to do to his life, the way it had affected his wife and how much misery this stupid attempt to get back at him had caused and that it wasn't only him she'd been trying to hurt but his wife and family as well "No, I'm sorry, I couldn't possibly work with her again, it wouldn't be fair to anyone"

"Give it some thought, Charles, you don't have to decide right now ... take your time ... we could arrange an informal meeting between the two of you with one of us present to iron out any possible misunderstandings"

"I don't need to think about it ... and there are no _misunderstandings_ as you put it" He rubbed his hand over the back of his neck as he thought about how to set about explaining without talking about how much it had all affected Molly, which as far as he was concerned was none of Claire's fucking business "Sasha's actions were ...spiteful and vindictive ... and disruptive ... but they were also deliberate, she might be young, but she is not a child and she knew precisely what she was doing when she was desperately trying to punish me for not being prepared to do what she wanted and she went a long way towards succeeding, so I'm sorry Claire, but I can't have her back in the team, I don't trust her and I couldn't possibly have someone in my team that I can't trust ... so the answer has to be no.."

"Well, if that's your final word ... and I do understand what you're saying Charles ... but I had a duty to ask"

"Indeed ... I understand that" He smiled his first genuine smile since he'd got in there "What happens now?"

"You pick up where you left things ... but it might be slightly more complicated as far as Sasha is concerned. Unless we decide to terminate her employment for gross misconduct, which might not be as easy as it sounds, I'll have to find another role for her in the organisation and hope that she decides to be sensible and take what's on offer ... and behaves herself in the future ... and then I'll be looking for a new assistant for you ... so unless there's anything else ... I think that just about covers it for the moment"

"Nope I can't think of anything else"

He grinned and stood up and shook her hand across the desk, he could recognise when someone wanted to get rid of him and he didn't blame her for wanting him gone, it probably hadn't been the easiest meeting she'd ever had. He knew he should go straight up to his office and see what was going on, should put in an appearance and make the team aware that he was back, but instead walked out of the building and headed for the river and found an empty bench to sit and watch the sun glinting off the water and to breathe what passed for fresh air in London. He wanted to talk to Molly before he did anything else.

"Hey ... you ..."

"Hello ..."

When he'd left that morning she'd had an expression of nonchalant encouragement on her face doing her best to mask the anxiety she was at pains to deny and had grinned at him as if she hadn't got a care in the world when he'd kissed her goodbye. But he'd shaved for the first time in a week and she'd reached up and stroked his face with a hand that was shaking slightly and told him that he looked much better, well less like some down and out anyway, as he angled his face into her touch. He'd laughed and said he didn't remember her complaining about his stubble before, in fact that she seemed to quite like it so that she'd giggled and slapped his bum before saying she quite liked a bit of rough sometimes ... but only sometimes.

"It's okay ... it's over and everything's fine ... it's going to be okay ... all over and done with and I'm still in one piece"

"Really? Everything?" Charles made a tiny noise signalling his agreement "See ... told you, didn't I? Knew I was right ... well ... I always am, aren't I?"

"Yup, well, if you say so"

"You okay? ... I mean ... where are you anyway? I can hear ... stuff ... and it don't sound like you're in the office"

"I'm fine, well now I am ... bloody relieved of course and I'm not in the office, I'm sitting by the river ... I needed to breathe some fresh air before I go back in there ... and I wanted to talk to you ... but I will have to go back in a minute, I need to see what's going on... and I've got to show my face sometime, so sooner the better"

"Okay ... but don't be late coming home will you?"

"Nope ... usual time ... hey, you're not crying are you?"

"Me? Nah, course not, you know me, I don't cry ... well, nothing to cry about is there? ... See you later"

Charles strode back to the offices, knowing that whatever Molly said, she'd been crying when she'd put the phone down so that he experienced a renewed burst of fury with bloody Sasha. The momentum of his anger did a lot to carry him through the first potentially awkward moments when he walked into the main office after an absence of a week that felt to him more like several bloody lifetimes. But apart from one or two sidelong glances as he walked to his little bolt hole there was just the usual air of organised chaos, of laughter and bustle and raised voices as people tried to explain things to people who were obviously finding it difficult to understand so that the most he heard was a muted chorus of 'welcome back' and 'hello' and there were a few half-hearted waves and some thumbs up gestures in his direction, and then it was exactly as if he'd never been away from the place.

-OG-

"Hey beautiful ..."

"What are you doing 'ere? I thought you said you was gonna be home usual time ... shit ... they haven't sacked you again 'ave they?"

"No they have not ... cheeky mare ... well not unless they decide they can do without me for taking the afternoon off, but I thought ... you know what, they've got on perfectly well without me for a week, so why not? I just wanted to hug my wife ... what's wrong with that? Now, would you mind coming here please?"

-OG-

"Are you sniffing me? Shit, I don't stink do I?" He leaned back slightly from where she was hugging him and held her at arm's length to look at her face, his own was wreathed in a happy smile which disappeared as soon as he saw the tears "Hey, you're not crying again are you? ... don't cry, it's all over... "

"I'm not ... told you I don't cry ... I'm just ... a bit sniffy that's all, just need to wipe me nose on something"

"Not on my shirt if you don't mind ..."

"Weren't going to ..." Molly tried to laugh as she leaned over and grabbed a bit of kitchen towel to wipe her face and then took a deep breath in an attempt to control the tears that kept threatening to escape and leak down her face, she'd got no idea why she wanted to cry, not now it was all over "And it's really ... all done with?" He nodded biting at his bottom lip to stop the smile that kept wanting to break out "And what about her, what's happening to her? Is she still gonna be working with you?"

"Good God no, not on your bloody life ... I have no idea what's going to happen to her Molly, and what's more I don't bloody care as long as I don't have to work with her... now, are you going to stop talking and kiss me?"

"Yeah in a minute, are you gonna stay there then or are you gonna tell them where to stick their poxy job?"

"Ummm ... not sure ... probably stay for a bit while I look around for something else ... but I can't see me being there long term ... now, are you going to shut up and kiss me?" Molly stood on tiptoe and pecked him on the cheek "Is that it?"

"Yeah ... me nose is all snotty ... need a tissue"

"Oh for fuck sake, come here"


End file.
